The Agent in the Red

Hello everyone! This is my first fanfic and I would love any feedback you could provide. Thanks and I hope you enjoy!

Prologue

July 28, 2010
Beijing, China
Peking University dormitories

“Dude, wake up. I’m not gonna tell you again,” Tim told his roommate as he was going out of his room to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

Tim Johnson was frustrated this morning. He woke up late because his stupid roommate unplugged the alarm to plug in his iPod charger and forgot to plug the alarm back in after he was done. So now, Tim was late for his morning class at the Peking University summer program. He didn’t even want to be in China this summer. He wanted to be back in California, surfing and hanging out with his friends but instead, he was stuck in this Chinese language immersion program that his parents signed him up for. “China is going to run the world someday,” his dad had told him. “You need to learn to speak with them for your future.” But at sixteen, Tim did not care about his future. He cared about being back home, chasing girls, and partying with his friends. And to make matters worse, he and his roommate did not get along. Alex Santa Ana was the son of the Vincent and Maria Santa Ana, owners of Sabrina Telecommunications, the biggest communications company in the Western hemisphere and according to Tim, you could not find someone more spoiled than Alex. He would frequently stay out and party, miss class, and then get his absences excused just because of who his parents were. Sabrina Telecommunications was hoping to be the first Western communications company to score a contract with the Chinese government worth millions of dollars so Tim knew Alex was here only for the press to think his family was really interested in the Chinese culture. Alex frequently stated that he didn’t have to learn the language; he would hire interpreters for that when he took over the company. Just three more weeks and you’ll be back home, Tim told himself as he finished brushing his teeth.

He ran back to the room to finish getting ready and noticed that his roommate was still in bed. Probably stayed out late again. Tim was just about to leave the room and his roommate to his own fate when he heard a moan coming from behind him. He turned around just in time to see Alex roll over and vomit violently onto the floor. What the hell!? Tim thought as he ran out of the room to get the chaperone that stayed with them in the dorm.

Knocking on the door, Tim yelled, “Mr. Wu! Mr. Wu! Come here quick! I think Alex is really sick!”

Mr. Wu opened the door to see Tim panicked. He threw on his robe and ran with Tim down the hallway to his room. Upon entering, they noticed that Alex had rolled over on his back and was groaning. Avoiding the puddle of vomit on the floor, Mr. Wu went over to Alex as Tim looked on from the doorway.

Mr. Wu put his hand on Alex’s shoulder and was shocked to feel the heat his body was emitting. He shook Alex and said, “Alex. Alex can you hear me?” When the boy did not respond, Mr. Wu turned to Tim and said, “We better call an ambulance. He’s burning up.”

Chapter 1

August 4, 2010
Washington D.C.
Dr. Temperance Brennan’s apartment

For most of her life, Dr. Temperance Brennan loved waking up early. She knew a new day heralded a chance to go into the lab and begin a full day of work she loved, helping bring identities to the faceless and silent. She still greatly enjoyed this work but about ten months ago her opinions of early mornings changed considerably. These days, the mornings were spent with her boyfriend Special Agent Seeley Booth, sleeping until the alarm went off and enjoying hitting the snooze button to spend an additional ten minutes of relaxing in his arms after that. This new routine had become even more commonplace after Booth had moved in with her two weeks ago. It had been a big step in their relationship that Brennan was still getting used to but she was surprised at how easy it was to be domestic with Booth. They had quickly slipped into a routine that seemed to work for both of them.

That’s not to say that their ten-month relationship had been all roses though. It had been about a year and a half since Booth was diagnosed with the brain tumor that changed their lives forever. After Booth woke up confused and disoriented, Brennan didn’t know what to do. The doctors suggested some time apart might help Booth sort through his thoughts and that maybe she should take a vacation. Even though she did not want to leave him, she was devastated when Booth didn’t seem to know the little things that defined their relationship. So, she volunteered to help on a National Geographic dig in Guatemala with a very heavy heart. In her six weeks at the dig site, her productivity levels were at an all time low. She constantly checked her email for any updates about Booth’s condition and instead of enjoying the digs like she normally did, all she wanted to do was go home.

When she landed back in Washington D.C., she was happy but nervous as well. She emailed Angela with her flight information earlier in the week and was expecting the artist to pick her up outside the crowded baggage claim at Reagan International Airport. But when she walked out and saw Booth standing there with his charm smile, she stopped dead in her tracks, drinking in his appearance. In the six weeks since she had seen him, his hair had almost grown all the way back. He was standing there in jeans and a black T-shirt and he looked fantastic. It was only when he called her “Bones,” a name she hadn’t heard him call her since before his surgery that she ran into his arms and gave him the fiercest hug she had ever given. He reciprocated in kind and from then on they had been inseparable. She helped him rediscover some of his mannerisms and “get his mojo back,” as he put it. Eating dinners and spending evenings at each other’s apartments had become commonplace once he went back to work and that routine had expanded to include lunch on the weekends as well. Then, about ten months ago, he shyly asked her on a real, bonafide date. After a dinner at a fancy restaurant of full of sneaking glances and awkward conversation, she suggested they go back to the diner for pie. After seeing the relieved look on his face accompanied by his charm smile, she knew she made the right suggestion and their first date, although it had a rocky beginning, ended on a high note. From there, their relationship soared as they became more comfortable with each other outside of their work partnership.

Now, as the alarm went off, she hit the snooze button, as per their routine, and rolled over to snuggle in for ten more minutes with Booth, but to her dismay, she discovered the other side of the bed was empty and cold.

“Booth?” she called out. As she woke up a little more, she noticed that the light in the living room was peeking in from around the door of the bedroom. She rolled out of bed and put on her robe before walking into the living room. On the couch, she saw Booth sitting in his Homer Simpson boxers and a white T-shirt, watching the morning news and munching on Cornflakes. One of the only conditions he had about moving into her apartment was the television came with him and she happily agreed. It was a warm August morning and she noticed that he had opened up the windows of her apartment before sitting down to enjoy his breakfast on the couch, much to her annoyance. She had told him on multiple occasions to eat his cereal at the table. But seeing him sitting there, his hair all over the place from sleep and absent mindedly shoveling cereal into his mouth while staring at the television reminded her so much of how Parker looks doing the exact same activity, she couldn’t stay mad for long. Instead she walked over behind the couch where he was sitting and gently put her hands on his shoulders and leaned down to give his left temple a kiss. He turned his head up and gave her a soft smile.

“Morning, Bones. How’d you sleep?” came out around a mouth full of Cornflakes.

“Fine. How long have you been up? I didn’t hear you get out of bed,” she said as she went into the kitchen for her morning coffee.

“Awhile,” was the short response. Now she understood. Ever since the surgery, some of the more violent memories from his past, whether it was his childhood or his time as a Ranger, came back in his dreams. They didn’t know why, but the doctors suggested that during the coma, memories he tried so hard to suppress might have come to the forefront of his memory again. It didn’t happen very often anymore, but when it did, he usually got up so he would not wake her and come out to watch TV. She responded with the question she always asked after one of those nights. “Do you want to talk about it?”

He turned away from the TV and pierced her with a pleading look as he said, “Not right now. Maybe later?” She nodded in the affirmative and sat down next to him with her coffee in hand.

“So what’s going on in the world today?” she asked, changing the subject. He sent her a grateful look as he turned back to the TV and continued his breakfast.

“Not much. Did you hear about that American high school kid who died in China?” He asked.

“Yeah, Angela mentioned something about that yesterday. He died of some kind of flu didn’t he?”

“That’s what the Chinese are saying. But they just reported this morning that the parents are trying to get the body back so they can bury him but the Chinese won’t release the body because they don’t want any chance that the flu could spread. The kid’s parents own Sabrina Telecommunications. They have been pleading with the Chinese government and offered to pay large sums of money but so far nothing has happened.”

“But when he died, the flu virus should have died shortly thereafter because it didn’t have a host anymore. There shouldn’t be any reason for them not to release the body. Why would they be keeping it?” she argued.

“I don’t know Bones. That’s more your area of expertise,” he said as he smiled at her. He took a last bite of his cereal and got up to clean his bowl out in the kitchen. Brennan looked at the clock. 6:22 am. They had about twenty-five minutes before they had to be out the door and they still had to shower and get dressed. As if reading her thoughts, Booth said, “I’m going to jump in the shower, do you wanna join me?” as he smiled and offered her his hand to pull her up from the couch.

She looked confused for a moment while she let him pull her towards the bathroom and said, “I would love to shower with you but why would you jump in? Stepping in is perfectly satisfactory.”

Booth turned to see if she was kidding. When he saw the “scrunchy face,” he realized she was not and said, “Oh, Bones. There is still so much for me to teach you.”

Your first one, anteater?? With a case and everything! Wow!

You handled her going to Guatemala nicely, and I loved him picking his "Bones" up at the airport. And the part about him getting up from his dreams, nice. But most realistic of all was sitting on the couch eating the corn flakes over the coffee table watching the morning news!

I'm liking it. Please, keep going.

(And I like knowing what their morning's gonna be like next year on my birthday!!)

I like the case...it's unique for Bones and topical both. I'm kind of curious to know what happened to Tim and the chaperone--are they in quarantine? Something more serious? And you do write well, very smooth.

Hello everyone. Here is chapter 2. Hope you enjoy and thanks for the feedback! It is much appreciated.

Chapter 2

August 10, 2010
Washington D.C.
J. Edgar Hoover Building

It had been about a week since Special Agent Seeley Booth heard about the death of sixteen-year-old Filipino American Alex Santa Ana from a mysterious flu in China. Since then, the story had made international headlines and was being covered by every major news agency throughout the world. Even though the Santa Anas were still trying everything possible to get their son’s body released, the Chinese government was not budging. Booth felt for the Santa Ana’s situation. He couldn’t imagine what he would do if that was Parker, G-d forbid.

But currently, the Santa Ana situation was the farthest thing from Booth’s mind. On the forefront was the tongue-lashing he was going to receive from Cullen if he did not get this paperwork done in time. Sitting in his office with a stack of paperwork a mile high on his desk, Booth was completely and totally bored. He hadn’t had a case with Bones in about a week. Three days ago, there was a commuter train crash right outside of Washington D.C. and the squint squad was busy identifying the victims from the crash, which meant Bones was in the Jeffersonian working away. Booth went by there everyday at lunch to make sure she was eating and was tempted to go over there right now. But, since it was only 10:30 am, he knew she would be angry if he dragged her away right now. So instead, he was going to pass the next hour and a half by trying to calculate just the right release point to make the maximum amount of paper basketballs in the trashcan across the room.

As Booth began lobbing the paper basketballs across the room, his mind drifted back to a familiar topic: his Bones. He smiled to himself, thinking that a couple of years ago Bones would have kicked his butt if she knew he called her “his Bones.” Now though, he wasn’t quite so sure. She had changed so much in the years since they became partners. Helping and seeing her rise above her parent’s abandonment and her time in the foster system had been an honor and a privilege. He likes to think he had helped her, and he probably had, but she did a lot of the work by herself. And now, Booth was reaping the rewards of all that work through the relationship that they share. He knew he loved her but also knew that she was not ready to hear the words just yet. He was glad that she had even agreed to move in together and the three weeks since they had been living together had been some of the best of his life.

His fourth basketball was in midair and looking to score when he heard a sharp rap on the door of his office. Surprised, he almost fell right out of his chair and looked up guiltily at Cullen, who was standing in his doorway with an amused smirk on his face. “Am I interrupting anything, Agent Booth?” Cullen asked.

“Um, no sir. Just working my way through this paperwork,” Booth replied as he straightened out in his chair and picked up a pen. He was trying to look innocent but knew he was failing.

“Sure you were Booth,” Cullen said. “Grab your coat and meet me in my office. We have a visitor.” Cullen turned and walked back toward his office, expecting Booth to follow shortly. Booth watched confused for a minute as Cullen walked away before snapping out of his stupor, grabbing his coat, and quickly following his boss to his office. I wonder what I did this time Booth thought as neared the office door.

When he reached the office, Cullen was holding the door open for him with a look that Booth couldn’t identify. He went into the office at Cullen’s insistence and sat down at one of two chairs that were placed in front of Cullen’s desk. An older man with a white, receding hairline and wrinkles around his eyes occupied the other chair. He wore a dark suit with an American flag pin on the left lapel that told Booth he probably worked in the government.

As Booth was sizing the man up, Cullen closed the door of his office and walked in to sit behind his desk. Before he sat down he said, “Agent Booth, I would like you to meet Senior Advisor David Cavigilio. He is the advisor to the Chinese ambassador. Mr. Cavigilio, this is Agent Booth.” After Cullen introduced the men and Booth shook the advisor’s hand, Booth was handed a file and Cavigilio started to speak.

“Now, Agent Booth, I’m sure you have heard about the death of Alex Santa Ana,” Cavigilio started. Already wary of what this conversation would hold, Booth nodded and Cavigilio continued. “Well, I’m sure something you haven’t heard is since the unfortunate death of their son, Vincent and Maria have stopped Sabrina Telecommunications’ negotiations with the Chinese to update their communications infrastructure, which would have greatly improved U.S. companies ability to do more business with them. I can’t tell you, with the economic down turn we are in right now, how much that could have stimulated not only our economy, but also the worldwide economy.”

At this point, Cavigilio stopped talking and Booth said, “The Santa Anas probably stopped negotiations because they are mourning the loss of their son. And I’m sorry, but what does any of this have to do with me?”

Cullen and Cavigilio made eye contact and Booth felt like he was left out of their silent conversation. Now he knew what other people felt like when he and Bones looked at each other. It sucked.

“Well, Agent Booth,” Cavigilio started again, “the Santa Anas stopped the negotiations because they do not think their son died from the flu. They suspect that he was murdered.”

Okay, he definitely wasn’t expecting that. “How do they figure that? From what I’ve heard, the Chinese have not allowed anyone outside their government access to the body. And, if I remember correctly from the papers, didn’t Alex’s roommate say that he was really sick the morning before he died?”

“Booth,” Cullen interrupted before he could continue. “Because of security concerns given the Santa Ana’s wealth and powerful position in their company, we had an undercover agent in China following the boy around at a discreet distance. There are a lot of Chinese radicals who didn’t like the proposed deal between Sabrina Telecommunications and their country, saying it would open up China to ‘unnecessary Western influence.’ Because of this, the Bureau was afraid that someone might kidnap the boy and sent the agent over there to make sure that didn’t happen.”

“So does the agent think Alex was murdered? Has the Bureau contacted him yet?” Booth interrupted, his mind going a mile a minute with the implications of this situation.

Cullen fixed him with a glare that said slow down and continued. “I was just getting there, Booth. Of course, after Alex’s death, the Bureau contacted the agent immediately and the agent said he saw Alex three hours before he was admitted to the hospital and he looked fine, having a good time with some of the locals. The agent said that he finds it hard to believe that a healthy, young man like Alex could have been as ill as he was that fast. We want you to go over to China and discreetly investigate this matter.”

Booth sat back and absorbed what Cullen and Cavigilio told him. He certainly understood that some of China was still very resistant to Western influence. He remembered all the restrictions that he had read about on athletes from two years ago at the Beijing Olympics. It was obvious that some of the locals were hostile to the countries visiting their hometown. But murder a sixteen-year-old kid and then make it look like it was the flu? That took a lot of sophisticated planning that had to involve high-level government employees. And now, they wanted Booth to go halfway around the world and dive head first into this mess. “Why me?” Booth asked after a few moments of silence.

“Well, Booth, the Bureau was impressed by how you handled yourself in the visit to Japan awhile back. The Japanese Police spoke very highly of you, especially a Ken Nakamura,” Cullen stated as he read from a file on his desk. “The Bureau thinks you are the best man for the job,” Cullen said.

Booth quickly examined his options and saw that there was no getting out of this one. Resigned to his fate, he stood up, file in hand and said, “Okay, sir, I’ll go over to the Jeffersonian and let Bones know we are going to China. What time do we leave?”

“Ah, Agent Booth, I assume you are referring to your partner, Dr. Brennan?” Cavigilio asked. When Booth nodded in the affirmative, Cavigilio continued. “She will not be accompanying you on this trip. You will be leaving tonight at ten o’clock so that you can be in China by tomorrow.”

“But Bones has to come,” Booth argued. “I may have hung around the squints a long time but I can’t look at a body and know whether or not he was murdered or died from the flu.”

“The Chinese don’t know we suspect that Alex was murdered, Booth,” Cullen stated as he looked Booth in the eye. “They think that you are going over there to help get the body released back to the custody of his parents. Sending a forensic anthropologist with you would only heighten suspicion of your presence, which is the last thing we need. For this case, you will be working with Agent Brian Kelso, who currently is the FBI attaché to the US Embassy. He will fill you in on any other details when you land.”

“But sir…” Booth tried to argue.

“You are dismissed Booth. I expect regular updates on your investigation and any other information you need is in the file,” Cullen interrupted, clearly not in the mood. Booth took one more glance at Cavigilio and Cullen and realized he was fighting a losing battle. Conceding defeat, he said, “Yes, sir,” and walked out the door and back to his office. It’s gonna be fun telling Bones she can’t come with me, Booth thought sourly as the sat down in his chair at his desk. He could already feel the headache he knew this case was going to create.

Oh, there'll be some reason for her to get there, I'm sure, but no, she's not going to happy about the delay.

Ahhh, international intrigue! No offense to Booth, but are we sure he can operate at that level? "More twists and turns than a pretzel factory..." Or I think that's how the quote goes.

Here is the next chapter. Thanks for the feedback and enjoy!

Chapter 3

August 10, 2010
Washington D.C.
Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Lab

“Well, sweetie, I have the facial reconstructions for three more of the victims,” Angela told Brennan as she stepped onto the platform of the lab. “These are for victim numbers eight, thirteen, and twenty-five, and if you don’t mind me saying, number eight was a real looker.”

Brennan smirked as Angela placed the facial reconstructions at the head of the tables with the appropriate numbers. She looked closely at each of Angela’s renderings and then at the skull of the victim. “Good work on number thirteen, Angela. The prominent zygomatic arches and frontal bone matches. Eight and twenty-five look good as well. We should check dental records against those the FBI has, but I am comfortable with saying that the victims are passengers Benjamin Sherman, Susan Phillips, and Ralph Mendoza, respectively.”

“Well, that’s three down and about ten more to go, people,” Dr. Sayoran stated as she looked on from the bottom of the stairs, still decked out in her full lab attire. Her lab apron still looked shiny from some of the more juicy bits of the bodies. “Dr. Brennan, I have four more bodies that I no longer need the flesh on. You can have Wendall get the flesh off the bones when you are ready.”

Brennan didn’t even look up from the tibia she was studying as she said, “Okay. Mr. Bray, go clean the bones after you take the skeletons from the platform into cold storage and inform the FBI that we have identified three more victims.”

“Sure thing, Dr. Brennan,” Wendall replied. Out of the corner of her eye, Brennan saw him get to work with some of the other lab assistants to remove the skeletons from the platform. It had been a long couple of days at the lab. She was in the middle of identifying a set of pre-Columbian remains three days ago when the phone rang and said there was a bad commuter train accident right outside Washington D.C. and about thirty people had died. For the Jeffersonian, that meant there were thirty bodies to be identified. The pre-Columbian remains were forgotten about as the bodies from the crash scene came in.

During the last few days, the only bright spot had been going home to Booth. She smiled to herself as she thought about how she had never really known what going home was until she started going home to Booth. She could see Angela narrowing her gaze and Brennan thought she probably looked odd smiling at the tibia that was in front of her face. She quickly shook any thought of Booth out of her head and went back to studying the bone for any irregularities.

“I saw that, Bren,” Angela stated as she walked over to Brennan’s workstation. “And I also know who put that smile on your face. How is Agent Studly?” Angela asked with a twinkle in her eye. In the beginning of their relationship Booth and Brennan wanted to keep it to themselves for a while, which had lasted about a second after Angela saw them together. About two days after they started their relationship, a case brought them through the front doors of the lab bickering about the suspect they had just questioned. After studying them for a second, Angela loudly asked when they started dating, and all the sudden, the whole lab knew. Not that anyone was surprised mind you.

“Angela, can we please not talk about this here? We are at work. Can we at least pretend to keep things professional?” Brennan asked. It wasn’t that she really wanted to keep things professional but if she started thinking about Booth, she would never get any work done. Looks like there could have been a greenstick fracture on the medial portion of the bone that was suffered in pre-pubescence…I’ll have to make a note of that in the file Brennan thought to herself.

“Sure, sweetie. But before we go back to being ‘professional,’ where is he? He hasn’t come in to drag you away for lunch yet and it’s already 1:30 pm. Did he have a meeting today or something?” Angela asked as she glanced toward the doors of the lab. Brennan snapped up at that and looked to the clock on the wall to confirm the time. That’s odd, Brennan thought. He should have been here by now. Maybe I should give him a call. As much as Brennan outwardly protested Booth dragging her away everyday for lunch, she really did enjoy the time they got to spend together and even admitted to herself that it was nice to get away from her bones for a while. Deciding a phone call to Booth was in order she gently put the tibia back on the lab table and snapped off her gloves.

“Mr. Bray, check the medial portion of the left tibia for a greenstick fracture and then make a note of it in the file. I’ll be in my office if anyone needs me.” Without looking to see if anyone heard her, she walked down the stairs of the platform and into her office. Once she was inside, she sat down at her desk without even taking off her lab coat and checked her phone for any missed calls. Seeing that there was none, she punched number 1 on her speed dial and waited for the other end to be picked up.

“Booth.” Brennan frowned as she heard the strain in his voice in just that one simple word.

“Booth, it’s me. Is everything ok? I know that I’m not very good with people and that I don’t like psychology but they do have some credible research that suggests that when people are stressed, their voice pitch is a little higher, and it seemed when you answered the phone right now, your voice was a little higher and in the past, Sweets has said…” Brennan trailed off when she heard Booth chuckle over the phone.

“Thanks, Bones. That was exactly what I needed right now.” She heard Booth sigh over the line.

“You’re welcome, Booth. But I was merely stating a fact so you don’t have to thank me. Are you okay? You didn’t come by for lunch today. Did a meeting or something come up?” she rambled on, as she tended to do when she was anxious. She would feel a lot better when Booth reassured her that he was all right.

“Yeah Bones, something came up at the office today. Sorry I missed lunch. But, um, listen, how about I make it up to you? I know you have the train crash to deal with at the lab but could you leave at around four instead of six? I’ll have dinner waiting for you when you get home,” Booth said and Brennan detected a hint of hope and desperation in his voice. It was that little hint that made her decide that she could take off a little early today.

“Sure, Booth. I’ll be home around 4:30. Do you need me to pick up anything on the way?” Brennan replied.

“No, just your beautiful self. You know I really missed you today, right?” Booth told her. Brennan smiled a soft smile at the other end of the line.

“I missed you too. I’ll see you in about three hours.” They said their goodbyes and Brennan got up from her chair and headed back to the platform to get as much done as she could in the next couple of hours. It was only when she was putting together the scaphoid and lunate bones of the left carpus that she realized that Booth never answered if he was okay or not.

August 10, 2010
Washington D.C.
Dr. Temperance Brennan’s apartment

Brennan opened the door of her apartment and the smell of stir-fry wafted through the door and assaulted her senses. She had identified one more victim from the train crash before she left the lab. Cam was a little upset that Brennan had taken off early, but she didn’t care. All she wanted to do was go home and make sure Booth was okay.

“Booth, I’m home,” she announced as her hung up her bag by the door and walked into the kitchen and dining room area. She spotted him at the stove flipping the vegetables in the stir fry pan, wearing an apron that said, “Kiss the cook.” It wasn’t the apron part of his attire that bothered her the most though. Usually the first thing he did when he came home from work was change into jeans or sweats and a T-shirt. Tonight; however, he had shed the tie, button-up shirt, jacket, and shoes but he still had his work slacks, white undershirt, and a pair of red and yellow-stripped socks. He turned and greeted her with a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes once he put the pan back down on the stove.

“Hey, babe,” he said softly as he walked over to her, pulled her to him, and gave her a long, lingering kiss on the lips. Brennan wrapped her arms around her neck and returned the kiss in kind. When they first started their relationship, she had objected every time he used one of his alpha-male terms of endearment until he pointed out that he had been calling her “Bones” for years. The kiss ended only when they ran out of oxygen and when they finally pulled apart; he wrapped his arms around her tightly and buried his face in her hair. “Thanks for taking off early today,” he said right next to her ear. Brennan shivered as she felt the words as much as she heard them against the outer shell of her ear. She returned the fierce hug for a moment before pulling back to look into his eyes. She knew those eyes like she knew her own and she could tell that something was troubling them.

Just as she was about to ask what was wrong, the timer went off in the kitchen and Booth gave her one more quick peck on the lips before turning around and attending to their meal. “Whatcha cooking?” she asked.

“Stir-fry. Chicken for me and tofu for you.” He began to scoop their food out of the pan and put it onto their plates. Brennan turned to the table and noticed that it was already set, complete with a glass of wine for her and a glass of water for him. Ever since he woke up from his coma, they had shared a glass of wine every night with dinner, so this also surprised her. Determined to find out what was wrong, she sat down at the table and waited for Booth to join her. He arrived a moment later bringing both of their plates with him. They ate a couple of bites in silence before Brennan finally put down her fork and was determined to get to the truth.

“So are you going to tell me what’s wrong?” Brennan asked bluntly. Booth sighed and put down his fork, apparently expecting this question. He kept his head down and wouldn’t meet her eyes as he started to talk, even though she angled her head downward, trying to catch a glimpse of what his eyes were saying as well as his mouth.

“I got called into Cullen’s office today. The Bureau put me on the Santa Ana case,” Booth said as he was fidgeting in his chair. Brennan was not surprised that they gave him such a high profile case; she knew he was very capable, but by the way he was still moving around, she had a feeling that there was something else.

“But why would they give you the case? I thought that Alex Santa Ana died of the flu,” Brennan replied, deciding to let him tell her the rest when he was ready.

Booth finally looked her in the eye. “The Santa Anas think he was murdered, Bones. The Bureau wants me to go over to China and help the FBI attaché to the U.S. Embassy discreetly poke around and see if we can find any evidence to support that theory.”

To say that Brennan was shocked would be an understatement. She was so surprised that it didn’t register that Booth had implied that he was going alone. “So when do we leave?”

Booth winced before saying, “Me, Bones. I leave in about 5 hours.” Brennan was ready to explode with reasons as to why she needed to go with him when he put his hand up. She closed her mouth and signaled for Booth to continue. “The Chinese don’t know that we suspect that Alex might have been murdered. The Bureau thinks that if I brought a world famous forensic anthropologist with me, it would arouse suspicion. They ordered me to go alone. I’m sorry Bones. You know I would take you with me if I could.” Booth reached across the table to grab her hand while he finished his sentence. Brennan grabbed hold of his hand tightly as she tried to keep her emotions under control. She saw how much this whole situation was hurting Booth and didn’t want him to stew over a potential argument during his 13-hour flight to China.

“Okay,” she said. Booth looked shocked.

“What? That’s it?”

“Well, you have a rational argument. Anthropologically speaking, the Chinese culture developed without influence from outside cultures until around the late 1800s. When they finally opened up doors of communication to the Western world, they were so far behind technologically that they developed a sort of inferiority complex to Western cultures. Those kind of cultural values permeate into the newer generations. It would make sense for the Chinese people to be threatened by Westerners even today, especially a woman at the top of her field who is also a best-selling author. In a male-dominated society, they may be threatened by my elevated social status and perceived superiority,” Brennan stated. As she finished, she looked at Booth to see him looking at her like he examined some of their suspects. She was determined not to flinch under his gaze and hoped he didn’t notice that she was squeezing his hand a little harder than when she started talking.

Finally, he said, “Thanks, Bones,” and released her hand to start gathering their dishes. Brennan let out a sigh of relief that quickly turned into a thought of loneliness. She had gotten so used to Booth being around she was sad at the thought of being without him for a while. She decided to make the best of their last few hours together before he left. She got up from the table and brought their glasses to the sink where he was washing off their dishes.

“Have you started packing yet?”

“No but it won’t take me that long. Just need a couple of suits and something to sleep in.” Booth said as he grabbed the glasses to start washing them as well. “Why? Did you have other plans?” he said as he put the glasses in the sink and grabbed her around the waist. She could tell that what she said had made him feel a little better about the case and he was back to being the playful Booth she adored.

“Well, only if your not too busy packing…”she trailed off as she grabbed his hands from around her waist and lead him to the bedroom.

“Oh no,” he assured her. “That is definitely the last thing on my mind right now.”

Nicely done. Rationality above all! (and love works wonders... )

I like the nod to the EitB--the glass of wine every night

I saw you posted over on FF.net, too, but I'll stick with following you here.

I'm caught up to Chap 2 and have to take off now! Aaah! Good going, anteater. Poor Booth, wants his Bones on a case and now he reels in a big one and they tell him, No Bones! What's the world coming to?

Okay, people, this is where we start getting into the nitty gritty of the case. Enjoy and please leave a comment!

Chapter 4

August 11, 2010
Beijing, China
Beijing Capital International Airport

Booth stepped out of the airport after a long 13-hour flight with his bag slung over his shoulder. He had taken off from Dulles Airport in Washington at around 10 last night after Bones dropped him off. Because Washington and Beijing are twelve hours apart, it was now about 11 pm in Beijing. Booth had learned how to battle against jet lag when he was in the Army but unfortunately, he didn’t sleep a wink on the plane and he knew that it was going to be hell getting over it but he figured he would spend the time he wasn’t sleeping studying the case files in more detail. The faster he got this figured out, the faster he gets to go home to Bones.

Upon walking out of the airport, he saw the city lights of Beijing by night. He heard it described as a modern city steeped in ancient traditions and he could tell that was true just by looking at it now. He could see the top of an ancient temple right next to the top of the Bird’s Nest Stadium from the last summer Olympics. He other thing he noticed when he walked outside the airport was the intense heat. Even though it was night, the heat and humidity still wrapped around him like a wool blanket in a sauna. It was way past oppressive and now bordering on intolerable. This is gonna be a long couple of days Booth thought as he finally started looking for his ride. He was told that the U.S. Embassy would be spending someone to pick him up and usually Embassy vehicles stick out like a sore thumb. He scanned the crowd and noticed the car was not the only thing that stuck out like a sore thumb. Booth saw a white man about his age approaching him, maybe 5’10” with FBI-regulation short blond hair and striking blue eyes. He was wearing a suit with a dark blue tie and Booth knew instantly that this was the FBI attaché to the U.S. Embassy.

“Agent Booth?” the man inquired. Booth nodded and the man smiled to him and stuck out his hand. “I’m Agent Brian Kelso. I work in the Embassy. Welcome to Beijing. Has the Bureau told you about your accommodations?”

“No, Agent Kelso,” Booth said as he released the agent’s hand. “They said that I would be bunking with someone from the embassy but they didn’t say who.” Because of the fact that the economy was in only the early stages of recovering, the Bureau wasn’t gonna shell out up the money to put up every agent when they traveled in a hotel. As a result, agents in local field offices were being asked to volunteer their couches for visiting agents. Booth, of course, was ecstatic when he thought about what a couple of nights on a couch were going to do to his back.

“Well, meet your new roommate. And you can call me Brian or Kelso. It would be kind of strange to continue with the whole formality thing when we are going to be sharing a bathroom,” Kelso stated with a laugh. Booth could read people like Bones could read, well, bones, and Booth knew that Kelso was nervous about something. He filed that piece of information away as he followed Kelso to his car, which was a standard issue FBI SUV and also stuck out like a sore thumb. Still sensing that Kelso was nervous, Booth initiated the conversation as he threw his bag in the back of the SUV. “So, Kelso, how did you get assigned all the way out here?”

“Oh, I asked to be assigned here,” Kelso stated as he got behind the wheel and started the car, navigating out into the crowded streets of Beijing. One thing Booth noticed instantly was the military presence. There seemed to be a soldier on every corner. “I have always been interested in the Chinese culture. I double majored in East Asian cultures and Chinese in college. Then when I came out here to study abroad at Peking University, I met a girl and fell in love. I brought her back to the U.S., married her and started working for the FBI as a translator but she really missed her family and I really wanted to do fieldwork. So I applied for a transfer to the position at the Embassy. It was a great fit for my wife and I. I get to do the work that I love, she gets to see her family, and we both get to live in a country we love.”

“Are you sure it’s okay that I’m gonna be crashing on your couch? I don’t want to impose on you and your wife,” Booth asked.

“No, you won’t be imposing at all. Actually, my wife’s sister is hospitalized with lung cancer so she is staying with her for the time being,” Kelso stated as his hands gripped the steering wheel until his knuckles were white and he started grinding his teeth when he was finished speaking. A touchy subject Booth thought as he observed the man.

“I’m very sorry to hear that,” Booth replied. Kelso seemed to snap out of his musings at the sound of Booth’s voice and looked over to him. For a moment, Booth thought he saw fear in the man’s eyes but it disappeared so quickly that he thought he must have imagined it.

“Well, you know it’s been a hard couple of months but things are looking a lot better than they have in a while. But enough talk about that, we’re here,” Kelso said as he stopped the car and put it in park in front of a food market where dinner was still swimming around in tanks in the front. Talk about fast food. You gotta catch it before you can eat it. Booth stared at the market as he got of the passenger side of the car and went around the back to grab his bag. The streets were still packed with people and even though it was closer to 9 pm, the heat was still as bad as when he walked out of the airport. After grabbing his bag, Booth followed Kelso to a small door that was wedged between two markets on the street. The door had a couple of Chinese symbols on it that Booth noted looked different than the ones on the awnings over the markets.

Kelso took out a set of keys from his pocket and opened the door. “Just up the stairs here, Agent Booth. We live on the fourth floor above the market.”

As they started to make their way up the stairs, Booth said, “Please drop the agent title here as well. Its just Booth.”

“Okay, Booth,” Kelso said as he smiled and opened the door. The apartment was a small, one bedroom with wood floors and a definite East meets West feel, appropriate considering the occupants of the apartment, Booth thought. There was a plush, brown couch that was pushed up against the wall beneath the large window that dominated the wall and a large oriental rug that covered most of the wood floor in the living room. To the right of the living room was a small kitchen and dining room and to the left of the living room, there were two doors. The first door went through to the bedroom while the second door lead into the bathroom. Around the apartment were some framed pictures and on the wall between the bedroom and bathroom doors, there was a framed piece of paper that had some Chinese symbols on it. “It isn’t much, but it’s home. You can go ahead and set your bag at the end of the couch there and the bathroom is the second door to your left. I’ll go get some sheets for you,” Kelso stated as he went into his bedroom.

Booth set his bag down and looked outside the window. From just looking at the skyline, you could guess that you were in New York City but upon closer examination, Booth could tell that he definitely wasn’t in Kansas anymore. There was military propaganda everywhere and even now Booth could see soldiers out walking the streets in quantities he had never seen before. It was very obvious who ran this country. He felt something in his gut when he gazed out of the window; something didn’t feel right and he had learned to trust his gut a long time ago. The death of a teenager didn’t sit well with him under any circumstances and these were definitely not just any circumstances.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” Kelso asked as he brought some sheets out and put them on the small table in front of the couch. Booth just nodded, deciding not to voice his thoughts just yet. “Are you tired?”

“No, I’m still pretty wired. Do you have any of the case files from the Santa Ana investigation? I’d like to get started as soon as possible,” Booth said as he took off his jacket and pulled off his tie.

“I thought you might. I saw a picture of you and your girlfriend in the New York Times when I was back in the states about six months ago. I love her books, by the way. Can’t get them in China, of course, but I read a couple back home. If I had a girl like that waiting for me to come home, I’d want to get started as soon as possible, too,” Kelso chuckled. “I’ve got it in my room. Let me bring ‘em out for you.”

Booth blushed as Kelso mentioned the picture. During the third month of their relationship, Bones’ fifth book was published and as such, she had a book tour to do in order to promote the sales. Booth didn’t see why that was necessary; the books did fine whether or not she went out and greeted her adoring public or not. For her stop in New York City, Bones convinced him to go along with her and make a weekend trip out of it. Knowing that this was number four or five in Angela’s “six stages of relationships,” Booth agreed to the trip. They had a great time and when they went to the book signing, they found out that her publisher had sent someone from the New York Times to do an interview and the reporter had brought a photographer. When the reporter and photographer found out that this was the Seeley Booth that Bones had dedicated her book to, they insisted on a picture. It turned out to be a great picture and when he arrived at work on Monday morning, he found that the other agents had plastered about fifty copies of the picture to his office door. He secretly had a copy in his desk though.

“Here it is,” Kelso said as he brought out one thin file and placed it on the small table in the dining room.

“This is it?” Booth stated incredulously.

“Things are done differently here, Booth. The military and the state are essentially the same thing. They have a court system but everyone is not presumed innocent until proven guilty. The cops and the lawyers work for the state so if they want something covered up, it is ordered from on high and then done, no questions asked. Honestly, we are lucky they gave us the file and haven’t cremated the body yet. In a country plagued by over-crowding, they don’t save a lot of space for dead bodies. You can look it over but tomorrow we are going to talk to Second Lieutenant Zhang Shaoqi, who is in charge of the investigation and see if we can’t get any more information. My advice: try and get some sleep,” Kelso gave him a pat on the back as he retreated back to his bedroom.

“And what if he won’t talk to us?” Booth asked his host.

Kelso stopped, turned around, and looked Booth in the eye. “Then what we have is what is in that file.” Kelso opened the door and right before he closed it he said, “Welcome to China, Agent Booth.”

oh, yeah--bad vibes all over the place! And it's not just the military presence, either (though if I were there, it would make my skin crawl).

No, in stories like this, I immediately start looking for sub-plots and conspiracies and I must say my radar's going off like crazy. But I like that you have the little light touches too, like the pictures pasted to his door.

Here's chapter 5. Thanks to dawnsfire and DBCrazy for the comments. They make my day! Enjoy and please leave any thoughts.

Chapter 5

August 13, 2010
Washington D.C.
Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Lab

Brennan woke with a start as she heard her best friend rap on the door to her office and state, “Sweetie, please don’t tell me that you slept here last night.”

Brennan looked around and realized that she indeed had fallen asleep on the couch in her office and it was now 7:30 am the following morning. She stayed late last night, claiming the reason was that she wanted to identify the last victim of the commuter train crash but the real reason was that she didn’t like going to the apartment when Booth wasn’t there. She couldn’t explain it rationally, much to her chagrin, but it felt cold and empty when he wasn’t around. It didn’t help that she hadn’t heard from Booth since he called her from the airport when he landed safely. She knew he was busy and that he had a lot of work to do there. It didn’t mean she couldn’t be angry with him, in her opinion, for not calling her for two days. She sat up on the couch and turned around to give Angela a guilty look.

“Ange, I worked late last night to identify the last victim and then came in my office. I had the intention of working on my book but I guess I fell asleep instead,” Brennan said as she stretched the kinks out of her body from the night on the couch. She got up and went her desk to check her phone; worried she had missed a call from Booth. She frowned when it said ‘no messages.’

“So Booth hasn’t called you yet, huh?” Angela asked as she walked into Brennan’s office and sat down in one of the two chairs in front of her desk. Brennan sat down in her chair, trying to appear undisturbed by the fact that she hadn’t heard from her boyfriend.

“He’s an FBI Agent sent over there to investigate a potential murder, Ange. It’s not like he’s over there on vacation. I’m sure he will call when he has a chance,” Brennan said. Even to her own ears that sounded false. She hoped Angela was going to drop the subject but she also knew that there was a very small chance of that actually happening.

“Sweetie, you are in a committed, long-term relationship with a man you care about. It’s okay to admit that you miss him,” Angela said sympathetically as she leaned forward in her chair. Just as Brennan was about to respond, her phone rang causing her to jump out of her seat and thrust her hand out to answer. Angela smirked as she mouthed “See you later,” and left Brennan to talk in peace.

“Brennan,” she answered, her voice brimming with hope.

“Hey, Bones. Man, it is so good to hear your voice,” Booth said. Brennan could hear the tiredness in his voice. Looking at her clock, she realized it was about 7:45 at night in Beijing because Washington and Beijing were 12 hours apart and upon hearing his voice, her anger at him had instantly evaporated. “Sorry I didn’t call you sooner,” he continued. “It has been a crazy couple of days and this is literally the first chance I’ve gotten.”

“It’s okay, Booth. I understand that you are busy but I do worry about you,” Brennan said, not totally willing to let him off the hook completely. “How’s the investigation going?”

“It’s completely miserable, Bones. I have been here for two days and nobody will talk to us. The guy in charge of the investigation, a Lieutenant Zhang, is a total jerk that I kind of exchanged words with. The only people who talked to us were the roommate and the chaperone, who are both quarantined. The poor kid is so scared; he pleaded with me the entire time and told me over and over again that he isn’t sick and that he just wants to go home. Both of them pretty much confirmed what we already knew: besides sleeping a lot more than usual and a few sniffles, Alex Santa Ana was perfectly healthy until the morning he died,” Booth finished with a sigh. Brennan could almost feel his frustration coming through the phone.

“Wait. What do you mean you exchanged words with him?” Brennan asked as she narrowed her eyes as if Booth was looking at her right then.

“Well, um, he wasn’t being very cooperative and said something to the effect that we didn’t belong there and then I said something like if he did a better job on the investigation then we wouldn’t have to be there and to make a long story short, there may have been some pushing and shoving involved. But he started it, Bones,” Booth said, sounding exactly like Parker when he was trying to convince them that he didn’t do anything wrong. Brennan closed her eyes and sighed.

“Booth,” Brennan started, “this is their country and their way of doing things. Anthropologically speaking, if you insult a Chinese male, it is like you are insulting his entire family, including his ancestors. You shouldn’t have done that. You need to be more sensitive to other cultural standards.”

“That’s what Kelso said,” Booth grumbled.

“That’s the agent you’re staying with, right?” Brennan asked as she took a sip of the coffee Angela had left when she stopped by this morning.

“Yup, that’s him. Seems nice enough, but I don’t know Bones. Something about this case is not sitting well with me. I just want to get it over as quickly as possible.”

“Have you been to the crime scene yet?” she asked.

“Yeah, but they had already cleaned the place up and are using it for other students. I did find a dead mosquito on the ground under his bed and had it shipped to you all at the lab. It’s probably nothing, but I figured I’d let Hodgins knock himself out over it.”

“Why would Hodgins knock himself out? Wouldn’t he need to be conscious if he is going to examine the mosquito?” Brennan asked, the confusion evident in her voice.

“No, Bones, he wouldn’t be literally knocking himself out. It’s an expression that means…you know what never mind. Just have him analyze it when it gets there will you? It should be there either tomorrow or the next day,” Booth finished.

“What about Alex’s body? Have you gotten access to it yet?”

“No, not yet. The Chinese are still holding it claiming that that don’t want to risk the body infecting healthy individuals,” Booth stated. He sighed again at the end of that statement and Brennan could imagine him running his hand through his hair as he talked to her.

“Okay, Booth. We’ll be sure to look for the package you sent. How are you holding up? You sound tired,” Brennan asked, not wanting to upset him more over the case. As illogical as it sounded, because she knew that touch alone cannot heal anything, she wished he were here so she could put her arms around him to help to soothe him.

“I’m okay, Bones. I’m a little tired and definitely frustrated but hearing your voice is already making me feel better. I miss you like crazy and I really, really wish you were here.” Brennan felt her heart figuratively melt at his words. Hearts could not actually melt, but Angela had explained the saying to her a couple of years ago.

“I miss you, too Booth,” she assured him. “The apartment is lonely without you. Do you have any idea when you might be coming home?”

“I spoke to Cullen right before you to give him an update and he said it shouldn’t be too long if the Chinese government keeps stalling us like they are. There’s no reason for me to be here if they aren’t actually letting us investigate anything. Hopefully, I’ll be home within the next couple of days but I’ll call you the minute I know for sure. How are things going in the lab?” Booth said.

“Well, I just finished identifying the body from the commuter train crash and let the FBI know this morning so that’s all wrapped up. Other than that, I’m going to work on identifying the set of pre-Columbian remains I was working on until the train crash occurred. So, unless something comes up, we’ll be doing that and looking at bones in limbo,” Brennan finished, looking down at her desk to confirm that the pre-Columbian remains were still at the Jeffersonian. Seeing that they were, she made a mental note to get Wendall to retrieve them when he got in.

“Okay, Bones, well I’ll let you go. I’m gonna grab a shower and a bite to eat and then I’m gonna try and get some sleep. I’ll call you soon, okay?”

“Okay Booth. Stay safe and I miss you,” Brennan told him, sad at the thought of hanging up the phone.

“Will do, Bones. I’ll talk to you later. I miss you too,” Booth said and disconnected the line.

Brennan put the phone back down on her desk with a sad sigh. Well, time to get to work she thought, hoping it would take her mind of how much she missed Booth.

Enjoy! Let me know what you think.

Chapter 6, part 1

August 13, 2010
Beijing, China
Agent Brian Kelso’s apartment

When Booth hung up the phone, he felt like a thousand pounds had been lifted off his shoulders. He’d never had a girlfriend that was able to do that and at a time like this, he was so grateful for her. He looked around the room and noticed the time. 8:53 pm. Wow, he hadn’t even realized him and Bones had talked for an hour. Next to the clock on the nightstand was a picture of Kelso’s wedding. Kelso had let him use his bedroom for some privacy during his call to Bones, which Booth was grateful for. They had gotten back to Kelso’s apartment around 6:30 pm and Booth had instantly shed his tie and jacket and put them on the back of the couch, trying to cool down in the August heat that was surrounding the city. Kelso told Booth to use his bedroom if he needed to call Bones and then said he was going to go to the hospital to check on his wife and her sister. That was about an hour and half ago. Kelso said he would bring back dinner when he came back so Booth decided to grab a shower before dinner arrived.

He walked into the bathroom, turned on the water, and stripped down to get in the shower. He felt the water slice over his tired muscles and felt like two days of filth built up from walking around the most polluted city on the planet washed off his body and went right down the drain. He was hoping that once he got home, he could wash this case right off him as well. Maybe he would let Bones wash it off, Booth thought as he smiled to himself. After the water had started to turn cold, he turned it off, stepped out, and grabbed the towel that had been placed there earlier. He dried off and wrapped the towel around his waist. He wiped some steam off the mirror and looked at his reflection. His eyes were bloodshot and he had bags underneath them. He had two days worth of stubble growing on his face and got out his shaving cream to start to get rid of it. After that task was completed, he put on some sweats and a T-shirt and lay down on the couch with the file, determined to find something that he had missed.

“Hey, Booth,” he heard as he felt Kelso’s hand shake his shoulder. “Hey, Booth, you awake, man? I brought home some dinner. You hungry?” Kelso asked as he moved into the kitchen to set the bags down on the table.

“What time is it?” Booth asked groggily as he sat up and rubbed the sleep out of his eyes.

“It’s 10 o’clock. Sorry I’m a little late with the food but I got caught up at the hospital with my wife’s sister. She’s doing a lot better, thankfully, and we finally scheduled her first round of chemotherapy. But enough about that, I’m starved! Let’s eat!” Kelso said as he rubbed his hands together and got some plates and two pairs of chopsticks out of the drawer.

Booth was surprised to find that he had slept. He didn’t even remember closing his eyes. The last thing he remembered was reading the Santa Ana file and he guessed he must have dozed off. He got up and went to the table. Once he smelled the food, he realized that he was hungry and dug into the food that Kelso had placed in front of him. “Thanks, man,” Booth told him.

“Yeah, no problem. Did you get anything from the file?” Kelso asked as he picked up his chopsticks. “I know there’s not much in the file, but I didn’t know if something caught your eye after talking to some of the people involved.”

“Unfortunately, I’m still at a dead end. I feel like working this case is the same as pounding my head against a wall.” Booth felt something against his back that was scratching him. Confused, he turned around to see his suit jacket on the back of the chair. “Hey Kelso, did you move my jacket?” Booth asked. He could have sworn he put it on the back on the couch.

Kelso swallowed his food before saying, “Oh yeah. It accidently fell off the back of the couch when I opened the door to go to the hospital. I picked it up and placed on the chair on my way out. Sorry about that.”

Booth shrugged it off and continued to eat. “How about you? You think of anything new?”

“Nope. I’m as lost as you are. I’m hoping that if I sleep with the file under my pillow, something will come to me,” Kelso joked. Booth responded with a small chuckle, put down his chopsticks, and leaned back in his chair.

“I don’t know, Kelso. I feel like I’m right on the verge of something in this case, like I’m one piece away from this thing making sense,” Booth commiserated. Booth ran his hands though this hand and continued, “I’m gonna hit the sack. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Kelso nodded. “Sounds good to me.” He got up and Booth watched him get up and take their empty plates in the sink. Booth went over to the couch and put his feet up as he lay back down. “I figure we will head down to the station at around 7:30 tomorrow morning. Is that good with you?”

“Sounds good,” Booth said as he set the alarm on his cell phone for 6:30, rolled over, and fell asleep.

August 14, 2010
Beijing, China
Agent Brian Kelso’s apartment

Booth woke with a start to the sound of loud banging on the door of Kelso’s apartment. He glanced at the clock across the room to see what time it was. 5:30? Who the hell is pounding down his door at 5:30? Booth thought. Kelso apparently was thinking the same thing, as Booth saw him stumbling out of his bedroom, pulling on a robe. Booth sat up and felt his heart start to race as he heard maybe five or six men shouting in Chinese from the other side of the door.

“What’s going on?” Booth asked as he stood up and reached for the gun that the U.S. Embassy had issued him once he had landed. Since he wasn’t able to bring his own gun over seas, the Embassy issued them as needed to various visiting American personnel and Booth, being an FBI Agent, was issued a .22 caliber. Kelso looked at him after looking through the peephole and Booth could instantly read the terror in his eyes.

“Put that away,” Kelso ordered. “If they come in here and they see you holding that gun, they will shoot you without even thinking twice. It seems like half of the Red Army is outside the door.” Booth could see that Kelso had gone pale and quickly put the gun back in his bag at the base of the couch. Kelso unlocked the door with a shaking hand, much to Booth’s dismay, and opened it, subjecting the two men inside to the storm raging outside.

When Kelso opened the door, four men wearing the Red Army uniforms came in with guns raised, shouting furiously in Chinese. They were all young; none of them could have been older than 25. Booth had no idea what they were saying but one of them pointed at him and then shouted something else. The three men behind the leader came hurling toward him and Booth didn’t need to know the language to figure out what he had said: Booth was in big trouble.

“What? What’s going on?” Booth shouted in order to be heard amongst the chaos going on in the apartment. He saw three other men enter the apartment, one as young as the rest but the other two were older and Booth saw the insignia on their uniforms signified that they were officers. One of the officers was holding a sheet of paper and talking to Kelso. Booth saw Kelso look down at the paper in shock as two of the three men went behind him and pulled his arms together behind his back. The third one stayed in front of him with a gun pointed in his face. Booth started fighting against the rough treatment while insisting, “I’ve done nothing wrong! I don’t understand you! What is going on?”

Booth kept putting up a good fight with the soldiers trying to handcuff his wrists behind his back, refusing to cooperate until he knew what was going on. Kelso was still talking to the officer with the piece of paper and Booth thought he looked defeated. Not taking this as a good sign, Booth re-doubled his efforts to get free. The men had managed to get a handcuff around one of his wrists and were endeavoring to secure the other one when a one of the older men walked toward him. Booth thought the man looked vaguely familiar and could see the rage written plainly across his face. The man stopped right in front of Booth and looked him hard in the eye. Then, out of nowhere, the man brought his arm up and punched Booth across the face. Booth felt the blow land right above his left temple and could feel the man’s ring leave a cut on his skin. The hit managed to disorient Booth enough for the men behind him to secure his other wrist into the cuff. Booth could feel the blood from the cut started to ooze down his face as he felt the men behind him start to propel him towards the door.

No way I am going anywhere with them! Booth thought as he dug his bare heels into the ground and put up as much resistance as he could. “Kelso, what the hell is going on?” Booth shouted while a third man came up behind him to assist the other two in trying to get him out the door. Kelso walked over to him with the piece of paper in his hands and said the six words that would turn Booth’s world upside down.

“They think you killed Lieutenant Zhang.”

Booth was so shocked that the chaos and noise in the room dimmed to a faint, annoying murmur. His mind felt absolutely blank as he tried to comprehend what Kelso had just told him. He felt like his body was no longer his; gone was the pain of the handcuffs biting into his wrists and the throbbing in his head where he had been struck. He was in such a daze that he didn’t hear Kelso tell him that he would call the Embassy and looking back, Booth couldn’t remember being taken down the stairs and put into the police car that sped through the quiet streets of pre-dawn Beijing toward his fate. He only came out of the daze when the car went past the U.S. Embassy and he saw the American flag that proudly waved in the wind, framed by the sunrise over the city, and the gate that separated Chinese and U.S. soil. As they passed the Embassy, Booth’s only thought was that he hoped he would step on U.S. soil again.

Chapter 6, part 2

August 14, 2010
Beijing, China
Qincheng Prison

Booth felt more than saw the car stop in front of the prison, as he was staring at his feet, still trying to comprehend what was going on. Once he looked out the window and took in his new surroundings, he estimated that they had been driving around 40 minutes. The sun was a lot higher in the sky than it had been when he was dragged out of Kelso’s apartment.

He saw his ‘escorts’ get out of the car and open his door. One of them had a gun pointed at him, obviously to discourage him from getting any ideas and two guards came and grabbed his arms to pull him out. Booth winced as his bare feet made contact with the sharp stones on the ground. Unfortunately, the pain in his feet brought back memories that he did not need right now of his imprisonment in another time and place. Don’t go there, Booth, he warned himself. Booth looked at his surroundings, trying to keep his mind in the present. It was obvious they were at a prison. The building in front of him loomed large as the soldiers directed him to the ominous door in the front. Booth looked around and saw thirty feet tall concrete walls with barbed wire on the top and three guards with AK-47s in front of the gate of the yard of the prison. Booth felt his heart rise up into his throat as they went through the door of the prison and he felt a chill come over his body. There were six or seven guards standing by the entrance, waiting for him, Booth realized with a start. He still couldn’t believe that this was actually happening to him. He wished that this were a dream that he would wake up from and be in bed with Bones, snuggling in for another ten minutes before they actually had to wake up.

More shouting by the guards brought him back to reality. They started motioning down the hall and the guards who still had a hold of his arms steered him to the left down a long passageway toward what looked like a receiving center. Once he was there, the guards started shouting at him again and took off his handcuffs. Booth retracted his hands and starting rubbing his wrists, trying to soothe the reddened areas. The men started shouting at him in Mandarin and pointed at his clothes. Bewildered, Booth said, “I don’t know what you’re saying. I don’t understand you. I didn’t do anything wrong!” Booth’s frustration was starting to rise to the surface as the guards continued to shout at him. For some reason, the line from the movie Cool Hand Luke surfaced in his mind: “What we got here is… failure to communicate.” The guards stopped their shouting and approached him again.

They started grabbing at his clothes and Booth, realizing that these were the last possessions that he had at the moment, backed away from them and started swinging at them.

“No! You can’t have them! Get away from me!” he shouted as more guards advanced on him. He felt one of the guards ram the butt of his AK-47 into the back of his right knee and Booth cried out in surprise and pain as the knee gave out on him and he fell to the ground. As he fell, five guards converged on him and hit him in the stomach and arms as Booth put them over his head to protect himself. After getting in some good hits, Booth was out of breath and hurting. He was sure that they fractured a couple bones in his left hand and he was just thankful none of his ribs seemed to be broken. So this is how it’s gonna be Booth thought as the guards picked him off the floor and made quick work of his clothes. Next they tried to take his St. Christopher medal and Booth was determined that they would not get this. After a similar struggle with the same result of Booth ending up on the floor trying to protect himself, he heard one of the guards say something and the guards backed off. They let him keep the medal, which Booth counted as a victory even though his body told him a different story.

Booth was exhausted from his brief fights and let the guards lead him into a room that was covered with tile. The guards pushed him into the corner and before Booth knew what was happening, he felt cold water hit his body and looked to see the guards with a hose, spraying him down. He tried to move away from the spray, the water combined with the injuries from his resistance combined to send his body into fresh waves of pain, but the guards pushed him back into the line of the spray.

Booth felt humiliated. He knew that this was part of breaking down the prisoner’s psyche and he refused to give into it. He picked his head up and looked the guards right in the eye with a look of determination. You will not break me he said to himself, hoping his eyes could communicate the message to the guards, piercing through the language barrier. The guards turned off the hose and grabbed him once again. They lead him into another room and gave him a pair of black pants and a long-sleeved, button up black shirt that had a number on the left chest, right above his heart, and motioned for him to put them on. After he was done, they handcuffed his hands in front of him after a brief struggle that earned him a bloody lip. But it was worth it in Booth’s mind if it let the guards know they would not get to him.

They then put him against the wall of the hallway and snapped a couple of pictures, making him turn from side to side for the pictures. He was then grabbed by the arms and led to the stairs. After climbing three flights, they arrived at his new home for the time being: a small cell that had a small window, a rug that doubled for a bed, and small toilet in the corner. They shoved Booth in the room and closed the door.

“Hey! What about these!” Booth yelled through the solid door, referring to his handcuffs. A guard opened a small peephole, looked at Booth and then closed it. “Apparently these don’t come off,” Booth muttered under his breath. He looked around his cell and noticed there was also a small light bulb that was not currently on. Booth sat down on his “bed” and put his head in his hands, his hand throbbing in time with the beating of his heart. What on earth am I going to do, he thought.

Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear. Not what I was expecting, but it's still trouble...and Brennan will come as soon as there's an inkling something's wrong. She at least speaks Chinese. And can the Embassy do anything? Does the Embassy even know?

And the jacket--hmph. Doubt the explanation is truly that innocent. I suspect coercion and intimidation has been brought to bear on Kelso. Seems to be a common element in that kind of dictatorship.

Thanks for the feedback! Enjoy this chapter!

Chapter 7

August 13, 2010
Washington D.C.
Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Lab

What a day Brennan thought to herself as she stood over the bones of the pre-Columbian that she still couldn’t get a read on. It was a very confusing specimen with the carbon dating on the bones measuring back to the pre-Columbian era and the bones were found in the central part of Mexico, indicating Mesoamerican origins, but the strontium readings from the bones suggested that this person lived somewhere in northern Russia. Maybe Hodgins read the strontium wrong Brennan thought, although that was unlikely.

“Hey, Dr. B,” she heard Hodgins shout and then heard the beep of his card being swiped through at the bottom of the platform. “I got the box that Booth sent. You want me to start analyzing it now?”

Brennan glanced at her watch. It was already seven o’clock. She wondered why Hodgins was still here. When she turned to look at him, she saw him bouncing up and down on the balls of his feet with an excited look in his face. She narrowed her gaze and said, “Hodgins, why are you here? It is seven o’clock.”

“Well, when I heard that Booth was sending a dead mosquito from China, it was like Christmas came early this year. Always count on Booth to get the best presents. I was so bored on that commuter train case. There weren’t any bugs or particulates so while you all did your bones thing, I had nothing to do. So can I start now?”

“How did that even get here that fast? When I talked to Booth this morning, he said that he had just sent it,” Brennan asked as she turned to look at the right meta-tarsals of her pre-Columbian mystery.

“It turns out our Special Agent is more special than we give him credit for. He sent the box with diplomatic papers through the Embassy. So not only then would the Chinese government not be able to search it or stop it’s passage, but diplomatic papers are flown back and forth between the country and their Embassy daily, ensuring a fast travel time. You know there are a lot of theories that suggest…”

“You mean conspiracy theories,” Brennan interrupted with a look in his direction.

Hodgins gave her his own look back. “Yes, well, what you call conspiracy theories, some call being well-informed,” Hodgins finished indignantly.

Brennan rolled her eyes. “You might want to run it by Cam before you start, Hodgins. She seems to react negatively whenever you try anything without asking her first,” Brennan told him, remembering the incident last month when Hodgins and Mr. Nigel-Murray released 400 fruit flies into a room with various different garbage odors to see which ones the flies would be attracted to first. The problem was it stuck up the lab and it took three days to find and kill all the fruit flies. Cam had not been very happy. Brennan saw Hodgins’ face pale slightly as he recalled the consequences to that event and she watched as he shrugged and said, “Well, I guess it would be good to get home tonight. This beautiful creature will just have to wait until tomorrow.”

Brennan chuckled under her breath and decided that she too should probably get going for the night. Her publisher was pestering her to get the next chapter of her book done and since Booth wasn’t around, she figured she should take advantage of this time to get in some uninterrupted work. She snapped her gloves off and went down the stairs of the platform to her office. The lab was quiet, since mostly everyone had left, and Brennan enjoyed the peacefulness of one of her favorite places.

As she entered her office, she saw her phone vibrating on the desk, alerting her that she had missed a call. When she picked up her phone, she noticed that she had actually missed three calls, two from Angela and one from Cullen. Uh-oh she thought Cullen only calls me when Booth is in trouble. As she was about to call Cullen back, her phone rang in her hand and the caller ID showed it was Angela.

“Ange?” she answered.

“Bren, thank G-d you picked up. Are you still at the lab?” Angela asked and Brennan could hear the panic in her voice. Brennan had heard that anxiety was contagious and right now, she felt her heart starting to race, like she had caught Angela’s anxiety.

“Yeah, I am. What happened Angela? Did something happen to Booth?” Brennan asked as she starting pacing around her office.

“Bren, turn on your T.V. and then call Cullen. I am on my way to the lab right now and I’ll meet you in your office okay? Just, please, don’t freak out. I’ll be there in five minutes,” Angela said and then she hung up.

Brennan quickly dropped her phone on the couch and grabbed the remote from the table to turn on the T.V. in her office. The T.V. was already on CNN from the last time it was on and what she heard took the air out of her lungs as she collapsed down on the couch and watched the anchor with her jaw on the floor.

“As we have been reporting for the last 30 minutes, CNN has just gotten word of the arrest of FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth in Beijing for the murder of Second Lieutenant Zhang Shaoqi. Now, we know that Agent Booth was in China for an investigation but the FBI has not yet commented on the situation. The Chinese government has released these photos of Agent Booth, which unfortunately, show him a little worse for wear. Please note that these images may be disturbing to some viewers.”

As the reporter said this, they put Booth’s photo on the screen and Brennan gasped as her hands flew to cover her mouth and her eyes began to water with unshed tears. There on screen was her boyfriend in a black prison uniform, with a cut and bruise on his left temple and a bloodied lip. His hands were cuffed in front of him and the forensic anthropologist in her was immediately drawn to the way his left hand had started to bruise. Brennan could see how the metacarpals for the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd phalanges were out of their normal alignment and the hand was swollen already. Definitely broken Brennan thought in horror.

The reporter continued, “We will keep our viewers updated on the situation as it progresses and we have more information. Again, CNN has confirmed that about two hours ago, the Chinese government arrested FBI Special Agent Seeley Booth for the murder of Second Lieutenant Zhang Shaoqi.”

Brennan couldn’t watch anymore. She turned off the T.V. and thought she was going to be sick. Even her advanced ability to compartmentalize situations was not kicking in. All she could see was her boyfriend’s face up on that screen and her mind conjured up the horrible ways in which he could have sustained those injuries. She didn’t even hear Angela come into her office and jumped up when Angela put her hand on her shoulder.

“Oh, sweetie,” Angela said sympathetically, and Brennan realized that her tears had spilled over and were now rolling down her face. She angrily wiped at her face to try and remove any traces of the tears.

“I need to call Cullen,” Brennan said as she went to her phone. She saw Angela nod out of the corner of her eye and saw her walk just outside the door to give Brennan some privacy. Brennan quickly dialed Cullen’s number and he picked up on the second ring.

“Cullen,” he stated tersely.

“It’s Dr. Brennan, sir. Is it true what they are saying about Booth?” Brennan said, hoping her wouldn’t notice the weakness in her voice.

After a beat, Cullen responded. “Dr. Brennan, you should come to the Hoover Building as soon as possible. I’m up-ing your security clearance for the time being as a courtesy to Booth. He would want you involved.”

“Okay. I’ll be there in 15 minutes,” Brennan said as she hung up the phone. She walked out of her office and ran into Angela, who she forgot was still standing outside her door. “Ange, I need to get to the Hoover. Cullen is going to fill me in when I get there,” she said as she went to brush by Angela and out the door.

“Wait, Bren,” Angela said as she grabbed her arm. “I’ll drive you. You shouldn’t be alone right now.” Even though Brennan didn’t want to admit it, she knew Angela was right and nodded her head as she started out the door again. She heard Angela catch up to her and they did very little talking on the way to the car, both women anxious to learn more about Booth’s fate.

August 13, 2010
Washington D.C.
J. Edgar Hoover Building

Brennan impatiently tapped her foot and crossed her arms over her chest as she waited for the elevator to reach the floor that Cullen’s office was on. Angela was waiting in the car in the parking structure for when she was done. Brennan was really glad for her friend’s silent support right now. She didn’t want to admit how weak she was feeling right now and with Angela she didn’t have to.

Finally, Brennan thought as she heard the elevator ding, indicating her arrival. She ran out of the elevator, nearly knocking over an agent who stood in her path. She muttered an apology but she was not deterred. She saw Cullen’s office ahead of her and saw Cullen inside at his office, talking passionately on the phone. Brennan saw his hands gesturing as though he was talking to the person face to face. She went up to his door and knocked. Cullen looked up and gestured for her to come in before returning to his phone call. Brennan went into his office and sat down at a chair in front of his desk.

“Well, then figure it out. This is too important to mess up! A man’s life is at stake!” Cullen finished as the slammed down the phone. Brennan saw him rub his temples and close his eyes before saying, “Thanks for coming on such short notice, Dr. Brennan, but I’m afraid that I don’t have a lot of information and what I do have isn’t good.” Cullen opened his eyes and looked at her with sympathy in his eyes.

Brennan took a deep breath and steeled herself for what she was about to hear. “Sir, I just need to know what is going on with my partner. Please,” Brennan pleaded.

Cullen looked at her for a moment, as if evaluating how much he should tell her. They told Cullen about their relationship when it started. Booth said he respected his boss too much for him to find out from a third party. And while Cullen was initially unhappy, he had turned into one of their biggest supporters when he saw that their solve rate and professionalism on the job remained the same. She managed to look strong even though she was feeling quite the opposite. She was confused and scared and was worried that her ability to compartmentalize had not kicked in yet. It seems when it came to Booth, her heart was the only compartment available and it never closed, no matter how much she wanted it to.

“Okay,” Cullen started, seemingly making up his mind, “Here’s what we know so far: Booth was arrested around 5:30 this morning, Beijing time, for the murder of Second Lieutenant Zhang Shaoqi. Zhang was killed last night around 9:30 pm, Beijing time, and they have a lot of evidence claiming that Booth did it. From what the Chinese government has told the U.S. Embassy, they have a bullet from Booth’s gun that matches what they pulled out of Zhang’s body, gunpowder on Booth’s jacket, they have several witnesses who saw Booth arguing with Zhang about 12 hours before he was killed, and according to the Embassy, Booth has no alibi for the time that Zhang was killed. He was in Kelso’s apartment alone at the time of the murder and nobody can or will account for Booth during the time.”

Brennan was absolutely shunned. How could they have gathered all that evidence that fast? It hasn’t even been twelve hours yet! Brennan thought.

“Well, Dr. Brennan, in China, they are no labor laws. Those people work when the government tells them to work, no matter what time or day it is. That’s how they’ve been able to put together this compelling of a case so fast.”

Realizing she had said those words out loud, she absorbed this information, her genius mind working a mile a minute. “So, what’s the next step? Where is he? When is his trial? Obviously he didn’t do this. When can I go over there? Can I see him?” Brennan fired off in rapid-fire succession. She only stopped when she saw Cullen put a hand, signaling her to stop.

“Dr. Brennan, most of us cannot think as fast as you so give me a minute to catch up,” Cullen told her with a smirk. “I spoke with the Ambassador this morning and he was in Shanghai for a conference but he is getting back to Beijing ASAP. He advised me that sending anyone over from the U.S. right now would only hurt Agent Booth’s case and make the Chinese government even more paranoid. They have excellent investigators over there and he assured me they were going to do everything they could. As for his trial, this is where things become…messy.”

“Messy? What do you mean?” Brennan asked, her stomach tying in knots as she thought of the implications.

“Well, as you know, Booth was in China on a sanctioned investigation from the U.S. government. Unfortunately, any type of diplomatic immunity is only applied to heads of state and their immediate advisors so we can’t claim diplomatic immunity and get Booth released. The Chinese are accusing him of murdering an officer in the Red Army, also a government employee. Because of this, according to Chinese law, they can declare Booth a political prisoner. If they do this, then the Chinese government will suspended his trial and sentence him to anywhere from 12-25 years of hard labor. Now we have been in contact constantly with the Embassy to see if we can get a read on what they are going to do, but the Chinese haven’t said anything yet. Obviously, we are hoping that they don’t declare him a political prisoner because if they do, it makes it much harder for us to get him out. Unfortunately, they have him at Qincheng Prison, which is the main prison for political prisoners in the Municipality of Beijing. This makes the Ambassador believe that they will declare him a political prisoner,” Cullen finished as his phone rang again. “Excuse me,” Cullen told her as he picked up the phone.

Brennan was in a state of shock. She tuned out Cullen on the phone and tried to gather and organize her thoughts. From the sound of it, Booth was in big trouble. And the problem is, she had no idea how to help him. She knew from her past travels to China that the legal system there was a nightmare for anyone, foreign or domestic. It was a dangerous combination of old traditions and new Communist philosophy. For one, non-Chinese nationals were not allowed to participate in the legal system at all: not as a witness, not as a lawyer, nothing. This meant that if Booth had a trial, he would be completely dependent on the system trying to convict him. But since the government ran everything in the country, Brennan knew that they could very well consider him a political prisoner and nobody within the system would even blink an eye.

She snapped out of her trance as she heard Cullen out down the phone. Even though Brennan was not good at reading people, the look on Cullen’s face spoke volumes: things had just gotten a lot worse.

I knew there was something about the jacket! As quick as you update, I am really starting to be on the edge of my seat here...please have an update soon! Poor Booth!

Enjoy and please let me know what you think!

Chapter 8

August 14, 2010
Beijing, China
Qincheng Prison

From what he could see of the position of the sky through the tiny window in his cell, Booth guessed that he had been locked up for about 6 hours now. His captors would come by about every two hours to check on him through the slot in the door. At one point he had fallen asleep facing the wall to try and block out the sunlight and was rudely awaken by the guards. He learned the hard way that here, you had better fall asleep facing the door or you would be waken up and made to sleep facing the door. They sure know how to communicate through the language barrier, Booth thought with a grimace, his sore ribs reminding him of the lesson. He had also learned that handcuffs were not optional and his left hand had not let up it’s throbbing in the past six hours either.

Even with all his troubles, though, Booth couldn’t stop thinking about Bones and Parker. Does she know what happened? Will Parker understand why Daddy can’t make his weekend? Will she compartmentalize and run? Does she feel abandoned? Will I ever see them again? The last thought was the one that Booth found most disheartening. He hoped this nightmare would be over soon so he would see them and hold them again. He knew that he didn’t commit the crime they were accusing him of but what he was really worried about was what evidence they had against him. Even worse, he knew no matter how good or bad the evidence was, it wasn’t going to take much to convince a court that he had killed Zhang, being he was an American FBI Agent sent over to investigate an issue that Chinese authorities already said was closed. His argument with Zhang earlier that day wasn’t going to help his case either.

Booth looked at the door as he heard footsteps coming down the hall. Time for their check-in Booth thought. To say that he felt like a zoo animal in a cage, with tourists coming to gawk at him was an understatement. When he got out of here, he was never going to take Parker to a zoo again. He heard the slot sliding open and saw a pair of eyes staring back at him. Booth gave the eyes a hard stare back and the slot closed a couple of seconds later.

Booth sat back on his “bed,” wondering what he was going to do for the next 2 hours when his door opened and five guards entered his cell. Booth started in surprise at the change in events and the guards grabbed him under his arms and hauled him up. The black slipper/shoes they gave him squeaked across the floor as they dragged him down the hall and back to the flight of stairs at the end. He had no idea where they were taking him and since he had yet to come across someone that spoke English in this hellhole, he passed on asking. The other three guards were walking behind him with guns aimed at his back, telling him that any shenanigans were discouraged.

After walking down 3 flights of stairs back to the first floor, they headed in the opposite direction of the shower room, which made Booth relieved that they wouldn’t be repeating that anytime soon. They passed the back entrance of the prison and Booth caught a look outside as they passed. What he saw horrified him. The scene could have been taken right out of the American South, about 200 years ago. He saw Chinese prisoners; wearing the same uniform he was wearing and leg irons, ankle deep in rice fields that were surrounded by the same thirty feet concrete walls Booth had seen in the front of the prison. Around the field, Booth saw various guards walking around with long, thin bamboo sticks and Booth visibly winced when he thought about what those were for and suddenly, Booth knew that he had just caught a glimpse of his future. Through Booth’s musings, the guards had walked him down the corridor to a room on the right hand side of the hallway. They ushered him into what looked like an office. Behind the desk, there were two men wearing Red Army uniforms and Booth recognized them as the officers at Agent Kelso’s apartment this morning. The one that had punched him was standing behind the desk while the one who was talking to Kelso was sitting in the chair. The guards led Booth to the chair in the center of the room and forcibly sat him down. Booth turned to give a glare to the guards as the man in the chair spoke.

“Agent Booth, I am Captain Huang Qishan,” Huang said in heavily accented but grammatically perfect English. “You are here because you murdered Second Lieutenant Zhang Shaoqi.”

Even though Booth was dismayed at the definitiveness of Huang’s statement, he was grateful there was at least someone here he could communicate with.

“Listen, that’s actually what I wanted to talk to you about. I did not kill him. Sure, we may have had a…disagreement but I would never kill him. I was in Kelso’s apartment all last night and didn’t leave-” Booth was cut off by the man standing shouting an angry string of Mandarin words that were punctuating by the man advancing towards Booth. Booth had seen the same look in the man’s eyes before: this morning when he hit him. Huang stood up and put a hand on the other man’s arm and said soft words in Mandarin to him. This seemed to calm him down and he backed off, turning away from Booth to face the back wall of the office.

“If I were you, Agent Booth,” Huang began as he sat down again, “I would not talk like that. This is Commander Zhang Jin, Lieutenant Zhang’s older brother. Your denial of your crime is an insult to the Lieutenant’s memory and to their entire family. It will be easier for you and everyone else if you confess your crime.”

Booth looked at Zhang and instantly saw why this man had looked familiar to him as the family resemblance became unmistakable. Booth felt for the man’s loss but needed to make clear to him the truth. Booth made to stand up but the guards had other plans. They came up behind him and wrestled into him into the chair.

“Get off me!” Booth shouted. “I’m in handcuffs and there are eight of you in the room; do you think I’m stupid enough to make a move?!” he told the guards even though he knew they couldn’t understand him. He struggled for a few more minutes until he felt one of the dreaded bamboo sticks across his back. He bit his lips and closed his eyes in order to keep from crying out as he felt the sting of he stick cut through his shirt and into his skin. He heard Huang bark out an order and Booth felt the guards take their hands off of him. After a minute, Booth felt his composure come back to him and he took a deep breath.

“Does he speak English?” Booth asked Huang.

“I speak English just fine, Agent Booth,” Zhang told him, not looking him in the face and talking to the wall. He spoke the same heavily accented English as Huang. “I just chose not to speak to my brother’s killer.”

“Commander Zhang, I am deeply sorry for your loss. I have a little brother myself and cannot begin to imagine the pain you are in. But I did not do this,” Booth finished; emphasizing the last statement because he knew his life depended on it. Zhang did not look at him, but Booth could feel the rage coming off of him in waves.

“Agent Booth, we know of your country’s values here. How you value the needs of the individual over the needs of the whole. How you are, as you say, ‘innocent until proven guilty.’ We are not that stupid here, Agent Booth. We put the welfare of the state above that of the individual. In a country as large as ours, we expect our criminals to confess to the crime they committed. We have six times the population of your country and one-tenth the crime. You will be made an example of, Agent Booth. We are going to use you to show your country how justice is supposed to be carried out,” Huang said, and Booth could feel the venom in his voice. It was very obvious that this man had some issues with the United States and Booth wasn’t comfortable being Huang’s whipping boy.

“Look, I hate to break it to you, but once the evidence comes out, you’ll see that I didn’t do this and then you’ll have no example. Once my people take a look at the evidence you have gathered, the case will be dismissed. And if it even goes to a trial, the jury will never convict,” Booth said confidently. Since he knew that he didn’t commit this crime, he knew that the squint squad would find something to clear his name.

Huang started to laugh, which made Booth’s stomach drop. “Stupid American,” Huang said. “First of all, non-Chinese nationals are not allowed to participate in our legal system. So even if your government could fabricate some evidence that you did not kill Lieutenant Zhang, it would not be permitted in court. Second of all, you have been declared a political prisoner by the Chinese government. That is equivalent to being convicted of the crime. I will decide your sentence, based on whether or not you confess to your crime. So Agent Booth, do you want to make this easy or hard on yourself?’ Huang ended with an evil smile.

Booth was stunned into silence. He saw his life flash before his eyes, from his horrible childhood to his most precious memories of Parker and Bones. He closed his eyes as his mind drew their images up in his head. He could not believe what he just heard. This was a terrible nightmare from which he wanted to wake up immediately. He couldn’t even believe that he was in a foreign country where he had no rights, charged with a crime that he did not commit but was convicted of without a trial and now was about to get his sentence. But I didn’t even do anything! Booth thought angrily. He opened his eyes and steeled his gaze.

“I am not guilty.”

Huang smirked in satisfaction. “Agent Booth, since you did not confess to your crime, you are hereby sentenced to 20 years hard labor in Qincheng Prison for the murder of Second Lieutenant Zhang Shaoqi.” Huang nodded to the guards behind him and Booth felt the guards grab his arms and begin to haul him out of the room.

“Wait,” Booth called out desperately. The guards must have heard the tone of his voice because they stopped but still kept a firm hold of him. “I want Commander Zhang to look me in the eyes, one older brother to another, and then tell me that I killed his brother.”

Booth looked at Zhang and saw him look turn around from where he had been staring at the wall for most of the time Booth had been in the room. Booth knew he could communicate with his eyes and felt if he could just get Zhang to look at him, he could at least plant a seed of doubt in Zhang’s mind that he didn’t kill the Lieutenant.

Booth saw Zhang turn around and made eye contact with him. Booth could tell Zhang was determined not to believe him by the hard set to his face and the coldness in his eyes. Booth focused all his energy into his gaze, trying desperately to put the truth in his eyes. Zhang and Booth exchanged a look for a long moment, and Booth swore he saw a change in Zhang’s eyes. Huang must have sensed something happening between the two men because he stepped between them, effectively ending the moment.

“What you want does not matter, Agent Booth.” Huang said something in Mandarin and the guards still holding Booth’s arms began to drag him out of the room again. Booth pointed with his hands, still in handcuffs, at Zhang as he was being led away.

“You know what you saw, Commander. You know!” was the last thing Booth got in before the door of the office slammed shut and Booth was led back to his cell.

"Easy" would only apply to Huang and the gov't; I imagine if he said he was guilty, they'd've hung him at dawn or at the very least still sentenced him to that 20 or more years anyway. It's a familiar pattern from my reading of history. And once he was a non-entity, it would be even easier to do away with him. Really looking forward to finding out what exactly is being covered up.

This is the chapter that I am most nervous about posting. All the science in this chapter is sound, it's just the end result of everything combined that I theorized about and may be a little far-fetched. But this is BONES, right? A little far-fetched science is par for the course. Let me know what you think because I'm really, really curious about what you all think about it and if the way I wrote it makes sense. Thanks for all the feedback and great reviews so far and I'm looking forward to more! Enjoy!

Chapter 9, part 1

August 18, 2010

Washington D.C.

Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Lab

Brennan felt like her life had been swept up in a whirlwind. She hadn’t felt this out of sorts since her parents left her and it was really bothering her. Cullen explained to Brennan that he and some of the people at the Embassy felt that Booth was set up; that the evidence against him was a little too perfect. Cullen said he felt that Booth might been onto something in the Santa Ana case and someone decided to take him out of the case in a drastic way. Brennan and Cullen both agreed that figuring out what happened to Alex might help reveal who set up Booth. After she left Cullen’s office, she had Angela drive her back to the Jeffersonian and she called Hodgins and Cam and told them to immediately start working on the mosquito Booth sent. Any clues they could gather about the death of Alex Santa Ana could only help Booth’s case.

It had been 5 days since Cullen told her that the Chinese government had declared Booth a political prisoner and sentenced him to 20 years of hard labor. In those 5 days, Brennan had not gone home, insisting that she was needed at the lab to help with the evidence. She was still waiting for Cam and Hodgins’ results with the mosquito. But the real reason was because she couldn’t sleep in their bed knowing that her bedmate was seven thousand miles away, being held against his will for something he didn’t do. She knew much Booth was affected by the taking of a life. There was no way he was the killer.

Her office phone rang and she considered just letting it go to voicemail, thinking it was probably a colleague wanting her opinion on a set of bones, but picked it up anyway. “Brennan.”

“Dr. Brennan, it’s Cullen. I have Ambassador Patrick Donovan and the agent that was tailing Alex Santa Ana on a secure line from the U.S. Embassy in China. I thought you would want to be informed about everything happening in Booth’s case.”

Brennan sat down. “Of course, I’m all ears. Well, technically no human could be made of ears because the ears do not contain necessary blood vessels and bony structures-”

“Um, Dr. Brennan? This is Ambassador Donovan. Thank you for the explanation but if it’s the same to you, why don’t we get started? This is Special Agent Michael Li. He was assigned to following Alex Santa Ana from June 13th to his death on July 28th.”

Cullen started with the questions and Brennan sat with her ear pressed tightly to the phone, trying to absorb everything they said. “Agent Li, can you tell us if you noticed anything out of the ordinary when you were tailing Alex Santa Ana?”

“I did. From the very first night I started looking after him, I noticed one guy in a Red Army uniform showing up at the same places Alex went to. At first it seemed like a coincidence; the man always was talking to people and seemed to have a purpose for being at these bars and clubs. But after a while, it seemed like something else. Then one night, about three weeks after Alex had been here, the guy made me and didn’t show up anymore. I have no idea how he recognized that I was FBI; I didn’t give any signs that I wasn’t a local hitting the bars. After he left, there was this other guy that was hanging around Alex. Alex seemed to know him and the guy bought him a few drinks on occasion,” Li told them.

“Why didn’t you say any of this when you talked to us over the phone after Alex’s death?” Cullen stated, beating Brennan to the question. If we had known someone was following Alex, we could have warned Booth to look out as well, Brennan thought bitterly.

Agent Li sighed and Brennan could here the regret in his voice over the phone. “Look, I took a risk telling you what I did over the phone. It was a pay phone in an alley, not the secure line we have here at the Embassy. The government here has every cell phone, phone, apartment; everything is bugged. During the time I was assigned to watching Alex, I had been in this country for four years trying to infiltrate 14K, one of the biggest organized crime triads in this country. And I was successful too; I almost had the thing cracked when Alex died. If they knew I was talking to the FBI they would kill me. Walking into the Embassy today effectively ended my work here.”

“Then why did you come forward today?” Brennan asked.

“When I heard about what happened to Agent Booth, I knew I had to come forward. He’s a good guy; I met him once at Quantico at a conference about ten years ago. I know he didn’t do this,” Li responded.

“Would you be able to recognize the men again if you saw them?” Donovan asked Li.

“Definitely,” Li replied confidently. Before anyone could say anything else, there was a knock on her office door and Brennan looked up to see Cam, Hodgins, and Angela on the other side, silently asking if they could come in. She motioned them to come in.

“I have to go, my team has some evidence they need to show me. Deputy Director Cullen, I’ll call you when I have more information,” Brennan said as she hung up the phone. She watched as Cam and Hodgins sat down in front of her desk and Angela took up residence on the couch.

Chapter 9, part 2

“Dr. Brennan, Dr. Hodgins and I have something to show you,” Cam said.

“Why are you here, Ange?” Brennan asked, looking toward her friend.

“Moral support, sweetie. We have a dozy of a case here.”

“What’s a-” Brennan started before she was interrupted by Hodgins.

“Let me start from the beginning Dr. B. The mosquito that Booth sent was amazing. Thank him for me next time you see him, will you? I haven’t had a sample like this in years,” Hodgins started.

“Hodgins, could we get on with it please?” Brennan stated, starting to get impatient.

“Sorry. Anyway, the mosquito had a belly full of blood and he had eaten just before he died. We took a little bit of the blood and Dr. Saroyan put it into RFLP or restriction fragment length polymorphism so we could get a possible DNA match.”

“We called the Santa Ana’s as soon as we knew we had enough blood to get a DNA profile. Luckily they were already in D.C. because of the situation with their son’s body. Unfortunately, they didn’t have anything with them that had any of Alex’s DNA on it with them but they were able to get his hairbrush overnighted from California to D.C. The hairbrush arrived yesterday and I was able to match the DNA profiles: the blood in the mosquito was definitely Alex Santa Ana. The profiles match with a 99.9% accuracy,” Cam told Brennan.

“So, the mosquito bit Alex Santa Ana before it died. That doesn’t give us anything. Even if Alex had an allergic reaction to the mosquito bite, it would not produce the severe effects that led to Alex’s death. How does this help?”

“This is where it gets interesting,” Hodgins continued and Brennan could hear the excitement in his voice and see it shining through his blue eyes. “I took most of the blood for other tests. The first test I ran was a chemical test to see if the blood had any abnormal chemicals. The blood had an extremely high level of dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT.”

Brennan was starting to get frustrated. “Again, so what? DDT is a common insecticide that is still being used and produced in China. It would be logical to assume that a mosquito found in China would be exposed to DDT.”

“I didn’t find the DDT in the mosquito’s blood, Dr. B. I found it in Alex’s,” Hodgins finished. Now Brennan was intrigued. There should be no reason for DDT to be in Alex’s blood and although DDT has never been shown to cause death in humans, it is considered “moderately hazardous” by the World Health Organization. It doesn’t have any immediate effects on most people and to a healthy sixteen-year-old boy, it probably wouldn’t have any effects that Alex would notice. He may have been more tired than normal, but that could have been attributed to jet lag or staying out late. With her mind spinning with the implications of this find, she told Hodgins to continue.

“So, as you know, DDT has never been shown to kill anyone, even in levels as high as we know were in Alex’s blood. But, DDT has been shown to effect hormone levels in humans by introducing what are called xenoestrogens in the blood. Xenoestrogens are a synthetic hormone that can mimic estrogen in the body, so in females it has been shown to increase the rate of breast and ovarian cancers. In men it has been shown to increase rage and strengthen muscles because the body will convert the xenoestrogen into testosterone, so much so that it is a banned substance in most professional sports. Now it’s other effect is what makes it so interesting to our case. The other major side effect of xenoestrogens is that it massively weakens our immune system. Now that takes a while to do, but with levels this high, the kid’s immune system had to have been compromised,” Hodgins finished, taking a breath.

Brennan thought for a moment. “Okay, so how did Alex get those high levels of DDT in his blood?”

Hodgins sounded like some of the wind had been taken out of his sails and his shoulders slumped slightly. “Yeah, we are still trying to figure that out,” he grumbled. “But, there’s something else. When we analyzed the rest-”

“Alcohol,” Brennan interrupted.

“What?” Hodgins and Cam said at the same time. “Bren, as much as I could go for some right now, I don’t really think-” Angela began.

“No, not that. DDT is an organochlorine, which means that it has good solubility in organic solvents, like alcohol. It is colorless and odorless and if Alex was drinking strong alcohol in mixed drinks, the tartness of those drinks easily could have masked the mild taste. We have reports from Alex’s roommate that he was partying and Agent Li stated that there were a couple of older guys buying him drinks, that would have been an easy way to get him to ingest large amounts of DDT,” Brennan finished excitedly. For the first time in five days, she felt that her world was falling into place again. The rationality of her science was comforting in the midst of all this chaos.

“Well, now that we know that these levels were intentional, this next part makes more sense,” Cam took over from Hodgins. “When we analyzed the other part of Alex’s blood we found a bacteria that causes the common cold, probably what caused the sniffles his roommate reported, but we also found a virus: yellow fever.”

“Yellow fever?” Brennan interrupted with confusion. “But that virus has never been reported in that part of the world and only 15% of its victims die.”

“We know, so I inputted the strain into the Center for Disease Control’s database and found that the strain in Alex’s blood originally comes from West Africa. But it is also the same strain that the CDC has on hand to make the vaccine. Now the vaccine for yellow fever is one of the only vaccines that is still a live or attenuated vaccine, which means that when a person gets the vaccine, they are injected with a small amount of the live virus. This small amount can cause a fever and maybe some nausea for a couple a days but for people with a healthy immune system it doesn’t bother them. For people that are immunocompromised though, it causes a major problem because their bodies cannot create the antibodies required to fight off the virus and those people will develop a full blown infection. The CDC prohibits people with compromised immune systems from receiving live vaccines,” Cam said. Brennan quickly put the dots together.

“So you think that this was organized from the very beginning. That someone had been poisoning Alex since he had been in China with DDT to damage his immune system and then when his immune system was compromised enough, they injected him with the vaccine for yellow fever. With his immune system as damaged as it was, he wouldn’t be able to fight off the virus and he would have presented with all the signs of yellow fever, which looks a lot like the flu. And in this day in age where everyone is paranoid about different flu viruses, they could claim that they did not want anyone to examine the body and did not want to release it because they were afraid that the virus could get out and affect the general public.” Brennan was stunned by this revelation. There was a moment of silence as the three scientists absorbed this information before Cam continued.

“I would be willing to bet that if you examined Alex’s body, you would find a puncture mark from where he was injected with the yellow fever vaccine.”

“So now we know how Alex died. But why go through all of this trouble? If someone wanted Alex dead, there are much easier ways to kill someone. I mean the yellow fever might not have killed him,” Brennan wondered out loud.

“Well, that’s obvious,” Hodgins stated. After a moment of silence, Angela said, “Enlighten us, Hodgins, because this is the part that Booth usually figures out.”

“It was the Chinese government.” After groans from Brennan, Cam, and Angela, Hodgins started again.

“Okay, okay, just hear me out. India, China, and North Korea are the only three countries in the world that still produce and export DDT and the distinct chemical formula in the DDT in Alex’s blood matched the DDT produced in China. The Chinese government controls the companies that make the DDT so it would be very easy for someone in the government to get enough DDT to poison Alex. Also, not just anyone can get the yellow fever vaccine. Ever since the swine flu scare last year, a lot of governments have requested vaccines for a variety of different viruses in case of an outbreak, including yellow fever.”

“Get to the point, Hodgins,” Cam said and Brennan could hear the frustration in her voice.

“Alex was the son of the owners of Sabrina Telecommunications, a company which was in the process of closing one of the biggest communications deals in Chinese history. Not only was this deal worth millions of dollars to Sabrina Telecommunications but also it would have opened up China to outside influence more than ever before. Because of this there were a lot of critics to this deal inside and outside the Chinese government. I think that some of these critics thought that if the Santa Ana’s son died, it would put the deal on hold for now and give them some more time to find a way to block it from happening,” Hodgins said.

“So, what’s the next step?” Cam asked.

“You have to find the guys that Agent Li said were buying Alex’s drinks. My guess is that those guys were the ones poisoning him with the DDT. If you find them, you may be able to find the people who set up Booth as well,” Hodgins answered, obviously using his years of being obsessed with conspiracy theories to come to that conclusion.

“All right. I’ll call Cullen and let him know what we found. He can relay it to the Embassy. Good work,” Brennan said, wordlessly dismissing the people in her office. Cam and Hodgins both nodded at her before getting up and leaving the room. Angela, though, got up from the couch and moved to Cam’s now vacant chair.

“Do you know when you are going to be able to see Booth?” she asked.

Brennan shook her head no. “The Ambassador is still insisting that our presence will only do more harm than good. But I have this irrational urge to go anyway, Ange. I need to see him,” Brennan said and she could hear the desperation in her voice. Brennan narrowed her eyes when Angela started to smile. “Ange, what did you do?”

“Well, sweetie, in two weeks, Peking University in Beijing is holding a conference about the significance of the “oracle bones,” which are pieces of animal bones that have inscriptions on them dating back on the 13th century BCE, placing them in the Shang Dynasty. Posing as your secretary, I emailed the director of the conference and told him that as a forensic anthropologist, you have been very interested in these bones and would love to attend the conference.”

Brennan began to smile as well, catching onto where Angela was going with this. “Ange, you didn’t…”

“They were thrilled to hear about your interest and are expecting you on August 31st. So you might want to tell Cullen when you call him that while you are in China for this fascinating conference, you might as well set up some time to see Booth as well,” Angela said as she got up and left the room.

Brennan could only stare, shocked, for a moment. Then she shook her head with a smile on her face. Even though it was still two weeks away, Angela had found her a way into China without drawing suspicion. Brennan laughed to herself as she picked up the phone, looking forward to Cullen’s reaction to the "meddling squints.”

Wow. *shakes head* All right, the science sounds reasonable (plausible-impossible, as the man said. Not that it couldn't happen, it's just a way to describe what you did, meaning it might not actually work that way, but it feels right. The opposite, and what we usually want to avoid, is possible-improbable).

And I'm glad after all that you ended on a high note. I loved how Angela just made those arrangements and Brennan's anticipation of Cullen's reaction. I hope she can do some good there and not end up in a cell right next to Booth!

Here's the first of two chapters I'll post today. Enjoy.

Chapter 10

August 31, 2010
Beijing, China
Qincheng Prison

That was the worst day EVER, Booth thought as he sat back down in his cell. Thankfully when they dragged him back to his little area, they had not put the handcuffs back on and had taken the leg irons that he had been wearing during his 16-hour shift in the fields outside off as well. Thank G-d for small favors. He took the rock that he had stunk in his cell from the field from his first day and marked another tally on the wall. Even though Booth knew this was about the most cliché thing he could do, it really was his only way to keep track of time and he marked it everyday when he got back from working. There were 18 marks so far: 18 marks too many as far as Booth was concerned.

Booth sat back and leaned his head back against the cold, concrete wall of his small cell. As he did his back touched the wall, making him snap up with a hiss and a wince. He really, really didn’t like those long bamboo sticks that the guards carried around and the bamboo stick and him had begun a more intimate relationship. Unfortunately, the way this worked was that they had a quota of rice that they had to pick per about a four-hour period. Now from what Booth could see, the other men here had to really pick up the pace to make the quota and that was with two good hands. Two weeks ago, he had been able to keep up, only missing quota a couple of times. But within the last couple of days, his broken left hand had really swollen and he was a little worried because he couldn’t feel his first and middle finger. Because he could only work with his right hand, he gathered only about half of the quota that he needed to gather to meet the overseer’s approval. When they inspected his collection and decided that it wasn’t enough, he got 10 whacks across the back with the bamboo stick. Booth had not made quota for a couple of days now in three of the four checks, so that equaled over 100 whacks in the last couple of days alone. Add that to the ones he got in his first week here, and he was sure his back looked as bad as it felt.

He looked up as his window and noticed that the sun had set. He looked up at the small light bulb that he discovered did not turn off after dark, which made sleeping on the uncomfortable rug on the floor even more difficult. Booth decided that he needed to wash off a little bit after a few minutes of relaxing and clearing his head. He could not stand the smell of himself anymore. He only got one shower and shave a week, and the shower was of the same variety he got when first arriving so most of his washing off happened in the sink of his cell. He went over to the sink that was attached to his toilet in the corner of the room. He was happy to see that there was an extra uniform in the corner that he could change into. He filled the sink with water, which came out a little less than the clear he was hoping for, and began unbuttoning his shirt. Wincing as the welts on his back reminded him them were there, he was finally able to pull off the shirt and use it as a washcloth. After carefully giving himself a satisfactory sponge bath.

About five minutes after he changed into his fresh clothes, he heard a barrage of footsteps coming down the hall. Please be coming to bother someone else for once Booth thought. He knew; however, that with his luck so far on this trip, that he would most likely be the lucky contestant that was chosen to accompany the guards to whatever fun experience they had waiting for him. He heard the footsteps stop outside his cell and the door opened. Six guards were standing outside with AK-47s and two of them came towards Booth with a pair of handcuffs in their hands. Great, this day just keeps getting better and better, Booth thought with a groan as the guards grabbed his broken hand. As a reflex to the pain, Booth withdrew his hand from the guards and shouted, “Hey! Watch it!” Booth realized too late that this would be taken as defiance and watched as the other four guards started to advance. Booth held up his hands in the classic surrender position and said, “Okay, okay. Just go easy next time,” and held his hands out in front of him to allow them to snap on the handcuffs.

Booth was led down the hall towards the stairs again. This time though, instead of heading for the first floor, they stopped and got out on the second floor in a part of the prison that Booth hadn’t seen yet. This corridor looked a lot like the other ones that Booth had seen but there was better lighting in here and he couldn’t see any cells. Abruptly, the guards turned and opened a door to Booth’s right. Looking in, he could see that the room was divided in half from the ceiling to the floor with at least a three inch piece of glass that spanned the entire length of the room, which had to be about 100 feet long. On both sides of the glass there was a white countertop that also extended the entire way down the room on both sides and there were green dividers and stools that were placed on each side of he glass between the dividers. For a moment, Booth was confused as to the purpose of this room until he saw the telephones hooked up to one side of the green walls that formed about forty spaces along the room.

I have a visitor? Booth thought. The guards kept walking and when they sat him down at a stool. Booth’s heart kept racing as he looked to see that there was nobody on the other side of the glass yet. He looked around the room and saw that at the end of the room in box of glass one of the guards sat with headphones on and a tape recorder. Booth picked up the telephone that was on his side on the glass and held it up to his ear. Sure enough, he heard the static that indicated someone was listening. So one of the little buggers does speak English Booth thought ruefully. He sat up a little on his stool to try and peer around the green divider on the other side and then found out that wasn’t allowed when the guards came to sit him down. Tired of being manhandled, Booth fought against them. “I wasn’t gonna do anything! I was just trying to see what is going on! Let go of me!” Apparently, these guards did not speak English as they kept struggling with Booth. One of them took the butt of his AK-47 and slammed it into Booth’s back, effectively ending his struggle. Booth bit his lip to keep from crying out as he sank down onto his stool with his elbows braced on the white counter. He heard a knocking from across the way and picked his head up as he was still trying to get his breathing under control. Across the glass, he saw Cullen, an African-American man, and his Bones. By her wide eyes and the panic he saw on her face, he knew that she saw some of the struggle. His heart soared at seeing her and he tried to give her a smile but it probably came out as a grimace. She gave him a tight, watery smile in return and picked up the phone, indicating for him to do the same. He picked up the phone, straightening up as his breathing came back under control, and said, “Hey Bones,” giving her a watery smile in return.

“Booth, I’m so glad that you are all right. I once did a study on the cultural impact of the Falun Gong in China and their treatment in re-education camps throughout the Chinese mainland so I know a little bit about...” Relief swept through his body as he heard her voice and he knew she was nervous by the rambling she was doing.

“I’m fine, Bones. Shocked about what happened and really wanting to get out of here but fine otherwise. It is so good to see a friendly face though,” Booth said. Bones just nodded at him and out her hand flat against her side of the glass. Booth repeated the move, but since his hands were still cuffed in front of him, he put the phone down on the counter before lifting his hand to touch hers. Even though there wasn’t actually any contact, Booth swore he could feel some of her heat through the glass. He couldn’t believe how much he missed someone wanting him, wanting to know that he was okay. He locked eyes with her and they shared an entire conversation as the rest of the world faded away. It could have been minutes or hours before he saw Bones look away and saw Cullen motion to pick up the phone again. Still not taking his eyes off of Bones, he picked up the phone from where he left it on the table and put it awkwardly to his ear with his cuffed hands.

“Booth?” Cullen started.

“Yeah, I’m here. So what’s up? All I know is that they accused me of killing-“ Booth stopped when Cullen indicated that he couldn’t hear anymore. “What?” Booth said looking back at his Chinese captors. He started banging the phone against the table, trying to see if he could make it work again. “Hello? This thing stopped working! Hello?” Booth looked across the glass and saw the African-American guy get up and talk to some of the guards on their side of the glass. Booth put the phone back up to his ear and waited.

The African-American man came back and picked up the phone. “Agent Booth? My name is Patrick Donovan; I’m the U.S. Ambassador to China. Sorry about them turning off the sound but we are not allowed to discuss the case at all. I just want to assure you that we are doing everything possible to help you out.”

“Thanks, I appreciate it. Whatever you’re doing though, could you do it a little faster? I’m not exactly winning any popularity contests here, if you know what I mean.” As he finished, he noticed Bones’ gaze flick down to his left hand. So she knows, Booth thought. Booth smiled to himself, thinking that he should have known that he couldn’t keep anything from Bones for long.

“We are trying our best, Booth,” Cullen told him as Donovan gave him the phone. “We just wanted you to know that we are doing what we can. Just hang in there, okay? We’re getting close.”

Booth nodded and he saw that all three of them turned to the left and he saw Donovan saying something. This one-sided conversation thing is getting really old Booth thought as he tried to look around the cubicle on the other side, without getting up this time.

Cullen got back on the phone and said, “Listen, Booth, we only have five more minutes before they turn off the sound. Ambassador Donovan and I are going to wait outside and let you talk to Dr. Brennan. Keep your spirits up, Booth. We’ll find a way.”

“Thanks, sir.” Booth saw Donovan and Cullen leave and Bones sat down at the stool across from him. She picked up the phone and they lost themselves in each other’s eyes for a couple more moments.

Brennan broke the silence. “So I saw Parker the weekend after you got here.”

Booth smiled at the mention of the other most important person in his life. “You did? What you’d do?”

“Well, Rebecca called me last minute and said that she had plans with Brent to get away for the weekend but the babysitter cancelled on her. We went to the park and he said he could teach me how to throw the perfect spiral because his daddy taught him,” Bones told him with a smile.

Booth chuckled and despite his situation, couldn’t help but smile back. “That’s my boy,” Booth said, his chest puffing out a little.

Bones chuckled a little as well. “Oh, he’s yours all right. Wanted mac n’ cheese for dinner and everything.”

Booth sobered for a minute, looked down at the counter. “Does he know about…you know, this?” he asked.

“Booth, look at me,” Bones said. Booth sighed, knowing he couldn’t refuse her. He looked in her eyes, fearing that he would see pity, but instead, only found support and something else he was too scared to identify. “I told him about it before I left to come here. He knows that his daddy did not do this and that people are just confused. He loves you, Booth,” Brennan told him with complete confidence. “And he told me to tell you to bring him back a panda even though I tried to explain to him that pandas are wild, dangerous animals that shouldn’t be removed from their natural habitat.”

Booth gave her a soft smile. “Thanks, Bones. I appreciate you taking time out to talk to my son. He deserves to hear that kind of news from someone who cares about him. Now, about the panda, I think he meant a stuffed, little one not an actual-“ Booth couldn’t finish as the sound was turned off again. A guard approached Bones on the other side of the window and Booth knew his brief escape from the hell he was living was over. Bones put her hand to the glass once more after she put the phone back. Booth put his hand up to hers for a couple of seconds before the guard escorted her out. Their eyes held each other until she was out of sight. He remained seated in the stool for a couple of minutes after she left, presumably waiting until Bones, Cullen, and Donovan left the prison.

Booth heard the guards approach him and knew it was time to go back to his cell. As he left, he looked toward the glass listening box in the back of the room and saw that the man that was there earlier was joined by Commander Zhang, who was wearing earphones as well. Booth looked over his shoulder at him as the guards were dragging him out the door and he could have sworn that he saw sympathy in the man’s eyes: eyes that until recently had looked upon him with only hate and disdain.

Chapter 11

September 1, 2010
Beijing, China
United States Embassy

Brennan woke up after about 20 minutes of sleep. She didn’t sleep at all last night. The visit to Booth yesterday night really made her think about their relationship. She missed him so much over the last couple of days and the prospect of not being able to see or touch him everyday for the next 20 years made her want to vomit. And while she knew that love was really an influx of serotonin and dopamine creating feelings of attachment that is essential to the continuation of the species, she felt that attachment forming more everyday with Booth. She needed to figure out how to get Booth out of that prison and back home where he belonged. She knew that he was trying to keep from her how bad it really was in there, but she saw the fight with the guards and saw how they ended it. She shuddered as she remembered watching them hit him in the back and she saw the pain he was in.

She walked from the bed to the small desk in the corner of the room. She was supposed to be at the conference tomorrow, but that was he furthest thing from her mind. She smiled when she remembered Cullen’s reaction to her, as he put it, “international academic pursuits.” She heard him mutter something about ‘damn squints’ and then told her if she was going to Beijing, he would go as her protection, thus giving them both a reason to see Booth. Because of the situation, the Embassy decided it would be best if her and Cullen stayed there. They had a couple of rooms for visitors and whatnot available so Brennan went to her room last night after they got back from the prison to try and get some sleep. When that didn’t work, she asked the Marine posted outside her door to get her whatever they had of the case file in the Zhang murder investigation. The Chinese, confident that their case would stand up, had given them copies of the lab results complete with pictures. She spent the rest of the night at the small desk trying to put together whatever she could to help Booth and seeing if she could disprove anything. Unfortunately, the case was very good. The bullet used to kill Zhang was a .22 caliber and the markings on the bullet matched the gun that the Embassy had issued Booth. Booth’s fingerprints were on the gun. Also, they found gunpowder on the right sleeve of Booth’s jacket consistent with the discharge from a gun firing. After looking at a picture of the jacket, Brennan recognized it as Booth’s. Body temperature and rigidity of the body put the time of death between 9:14 and 9:43 pm, time for which Booth has no alibi. Kelso stated that he was out of the apartment visiting his wife’s sister, which was confirmed by the hospital. The Chinese also had about thirty witnesses that saw Booth and Zhang arguing earlier that day. If I didn’t know for a fact that Booth didn’t do this, this evidence might compel me to believe that he did Brennan thought as she put her hands to her temples to try and rub away the headache that was forming. The only thing that was confusing Brennan is why they didn’t test Booth’s shirtsleeve for gunpowder residue. When they arrested Booth, they seized all of his belongings and Brennan saw his long-sleeve white shirt catalogued but did not see a report of it being tested for gunpowder. That report would only strengthen their case. Unless they knew it wouldn’t test positive for gunpowder residue Brennan thought. She really wished she could go over this with Booth. He would know the missing piece.

“Dr. Brennan?” she heard through the door, accompanied by a knock.

“Come in.”

Cullen stuck his head inside. “Good morning. Did you sleep at all?”

Brennan looked at the clock to see that it was 10:40 in the morning. Guess I slept longer than I thought. “A little. I’ve been looking over the case file.”

“Well, we got a major break in the case,” Cullen said with a smile. “Agent Li recognized one of the men he saw with Alex Santa Ana.”

Brennan froze as her heart leapt into her throat. “How? When? I thought Agent Li was confined to the Embassy too so he wouldn’t get in trouble with the gang for talking to us,” Brennan said as she scrambled to put on her shoes.

Cullen kept smiling. “I know. That’s what makes this a major break.”


Brennan, Cullen, Li, and Donovan stood on the other side of a two-way mirror looking at the suspect sweating it out in the interrogation room.

“Agent Li, are you sure that this is the man you saw buying Alex Santa Ana drinks?” Ambassador Donovan asked.

“Absolutely. The minute he walked through the door this morning, I knew it was him,” Li responded, looking at the suspect the entire time.

“How come you didn’t recognize him earlier?” Cullen asked.

“I haven’t really been an FBI Agent in four years. When I went under with 14K, the only agent I saw or made contact with was my handler. For the last couple of weeks, I was wrapping up lose ends in my case at the Beijing police headquarters. This is the first time I’ve been at the Embassy in over two weeks.”

Cullen nodded. Brennan kept looking at the suspect. She couldn’t believe that she didn’t put it together sooner.

“You ready to help me question him, Dr. Brennan?” Cullen asked her, snapping her out of her thoughts. Brennan looked at him surprised.

“You want me to come with you?” Brennan asked. Truthfully she still wasn’t sure if Cullen liked her or not.

“Booth thinks that you are good in the interrogation room and that is good enough for me,” Cullen told her as he left the room. Brennan followed him and he opened the door of the interrogation room. The suspect looked up when they walked in the room and even though Brennan was not very good at reading people, she could see the guilt in his eyes.

“So, Agent Kelso, why do you think you’re here?” Cullen said as he sat down at a chair opposite from Kelso. Brennan sat down in the chair next to where Cullen sat.

“Well, I assume that you wanted to ask me more questions about what happened when Agent Booth was arrested. You didn’t have to drag me into the interrogation room though,” Kelso said with a nervous laugh.

“We know about you buying drinks for and hanging out with Alex Santa Ana, Agent Kelso,” Brennan said. She was so anxious to see if Kelso could help them free Booth that she got right to the point.

Kelso looked stunned. He looked back and forth between Brennan and Cullen. After a couple of moments of silence, he said, “You don’t have any proof of that.”

“Actually, Agent Kelso,” Cullen started, “We have an eyewitness who saw you at the bars with Alex a couple of weeks after he got here. We had an FBI Agent keeping tabs on him. He recognized you when you walked into work this morning.”

“So what? I bought him drinks. That’s not illegal here,” Kelso replied, squirming in his chair the entire time.

“You’re right, Agent Kelso. But the buying the drinks part is not what we think was the illegal part,” Cullen said as he looked at Brennan, indicating for her to continue.

“We think that you were putting dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, or DDT, into Alex’s drinks because you were trying to poison him.”

Kelso looked stunned at what she said. “How the hell did you figure that out? I thought you were never allowed access to Alex’s body?”

“Booth found a dead mosquito under Alex’s bed. The mosquito bit Alex before it died so we were able to test the blood in its stomach,” Brennan told him.

Kelso looked to be absorbing this information. He sat back in his chair and ran his hands over his face. His body posture changed as his slumped in his chair.

“When Booth said you guys were good, he really meant it.”

Brennan felt her heart stop. She looked over at Cullen, who perked up in his chair and leaned his forearms on the table to get closer to Kelso. “What do you mean, Agent Kelso?”

“I’ll tell you everything in exchange for a couple of things,” Kelso started. Cullen nodded for Kelso to continue. “First, I want the Ambassador to promise me that I will be extradited to the U.S. for my trial. That is non-negotiable. I will not be apart of the legal system here. Second, I want to make it clear that I didn’t have a choice in this matter.”

Kelso stopped as the door opened and Donovan walked into the room. “Agent Kelso, you tell us what we need to get Agent Booth cleared and I’ll personally guarantee your passage to the United States. So start talking.”

Kelso nodded and Brennan sat back to listen to his tale.

“About two months ago, I was approached outside my apartment on the way to work by a man in a Red Army uniform. He said that if I wanted to help my wife’s sister get better, I should meet him outside the Bird’s Nest that night at 9 pm. I was instantly intrigued. Sun’s older sister has had lung cancer for a while and the healthcare system here is horrible. There really isn’t any type of insurance so whatever treatments you want, you have to pay for by yourself. Sun comes from a poor family in the Chinese mainland and her sister was her only sibling. Her parents tried to stick to the one child rule, but wanted to see if they could have a son but they got Sun instead, hence her name. When Ming got lung cancer, we tried to make the payments to get her help but my salary couldn’t cover her treatments and her condition kept getting worse. It was so bad that Sun’s parents wanted her to leave me and marry someone in the Party so they could arrange treatment for Ming. I love my wife with all my heart; I couldn’t lose her.”

“So you met with the man,” Brennan prodded.

Kelso nodded. “He told me that he was from the Party and had been given the mission of poisoning Alex Santa Ana. He said that they were trying to block the deal between Sabrina Telecommunications and the Chinese government and they figured if he got really sick over here, the parents would pull the deal from the table. He gave me the DDT and told me to put it into alcoholic drinks because the DDT would dissolve in the drink and Alex wouldn’t be able to taste it. He said if I did this, he would make sure Ming got the best treatment possible. I swear I didn’t want to kill him. I knew that DDT didn’t kill so I told him I would do it. I never knew they were going to inject him with the yellow fever vaccine.”

“How does Agent Booth fit into this?” Cullen asked.

Kelso looked down at his hands, avoiding everyone’s eyes as he told the next part of his story. “After Alex died, I panicked. I was terrified that they were going to kill me because I knew that Alex didn’t die of the flu. I was so paranoid I even installed a closed circuit camera in my living room so I could see from my bedroom if anyone came in my apartment. Sun was so happy, though. Ming started getting hospital visits and we even scheduled her first round of chemotherapy. But about a week after Alex died, the same man approached me again. He said that he was happy that Ming was starting to get treatment but that would stop if I didn’t do what he said. He said that they had evidence that I helped cause Alex’s death and that evidence would find its way into the Embassy if I didn’t comply. He told me that the Americans thought Alex was murdered and that they were sending an FBI Agent over to investigate. He told me to be ready and that they would contact me when they needed me. When I met Agent Booth, I was afraid he saw right through me from the very beginning. I think he always suspected something was up. For the first day, I didn’t hear anything. I was hoping that they wouldn’t contact me. But then after Agent Booth got into the fight with Lieutenant Zhang, I got a call telling me that I needed to make sure that Agent Booth would be in my apartment, alone, with no alibi for a couple of hours that night. He told me to grab his jacket and gun and meet him at door of my building. When we got back that night and Agent Booth went into my bedroom to call Dr. Brennan, I knew that I had my chance. I grabbed Booth’s gun from his bag and jacket off the back of the couch and gave it to him. Then I went to the hospital to make sure that the treatments were on schedule and to give myself an alibi. After he had…killed Zhang he called me and told me to meet him at my apartment. Luckily, Booth was asleep when I got in and I put his jacket on the chair because he was sleeping on the couch. He called me on it too and I almost admitted the whole thing right there. The next morning, they came and got Booth.”

Nobody commented in the room for a few minutes afterward, everyone trying to absorb what Kelso had just said. Well, now I know why they didn’t test Booth’s shirtsleeve for gunpowder residue. They wouldn’t find any there, Brennan thought.

Cullen finally broke the silence. “Agent Kelso, do you know the man who approached you and told you to bring him Agent Booth’s gun and jacket?”

Kelso nodded. “Yeah. It was Captain Huang Qishan.”